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Consumer Price Index
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Imputation
This page shows information on imputation in the Consumer Price Index.
For the Commodities and Services Survey, uncollected prices which are imputed from collected prices within the same item and geographic area are referred to as home cell imputation. This can be contrasted with different cell imputation where uncollected prices are imputed from collected prices of the same item in other geographic areas or from collected prices of related item categories in the same geographic area. Uncollected prices which are imputed from the previous month are referred to as carry forward imputation.
For the Housing Survey, non-vacant units with respondents previously reporting, but not currently reporting, receive non-interview imputation in the CPI. Vacant units that were previously occupied by renters are also imputed for use in estimation by separate methods.
Additional information on imputation is available from the Consumer Price Index program section of the BLS Handbook of Methods.
BLS began calculating and publishing the imputation data series in 2019. Imputation data from January 2019 to present (XLSX).
Last Modified Date: June 17, 2025