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Consumer Price Index
Bureau of Labor Statistics > Consumer Price Index > About > Notices

Recent and upcoming methodology changes: 2021

Health insurance retained earnings source changes (posted April 28, 2021)

Starting with April 2021 data, the health insurance index will stop using data from a national nonprofit health insurance carrier as part of its retained earnings calculation. Instead, the retained earnings will be calculated using data from the National Association of Insurance Commissioners (NAIC) and the California Department of Managed Healthcare only. 

Changes to gasoline source data (updated July 13, 2021)

With the release of June 2021 data, the CPI replaced the data collected by the BLS in the gasoline (all types) index with data from a secondary source. In addition, special relative series and an average price for each type of gasoline are calculated and published monthly using this dataset.

Additional information is available on the Secondary source data for gasoline webpage. Research and the methodology leading to this data source replacement are described in detail in this conference paper: A Nontraditional Data Approach to the CPI Gasoline Index. 

Physicians’ services imputation changes (updated June 17, 2021)

Upon further evaluation, we will not implement this change.

Starting with April 2021 data, the physicians’ services index will begin imputing missing prices by payer type in addition to the existing geography imputation. Quotes with a missing price will first attempt to impute off of prices of the same payer type in the same primary sampling unit (PSU), which will improve imputation accuracy when payer types experience different rates of inflation. The Measuring Price Change in the CPI: Medical care factsheet will be updated once this change takes effect. 

For archived recent and upcoming methodology changes since 2017, see the recent and upcoming methodology change notice archive.

Last Modified Date: August 25, 2022