Prices in the New York-Newark-Jersey City area, as measured by the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), inched up 0.2 percent in May, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. (See table A.) Regional Commissioner William J. Sibley noted that the May increase was influenced by higher shelter prices. (Data in this report are not seasonally adjusted. Accordingly, month-to-month changes may reflect seasonal influences.)

Over the last 12 months, the CPI-U advanced 3.5 percent. (See chart 1 and table A.) The index for all items less food and energy increased 5.1 percent. Food prices rose 5.2 percent. (See table 1.) Energy prices, on the other hand, dropped 17.6 percent.

  

View Chart Data

Chart 1. Over-the-year percent change in CPI-U, New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA, May 2020–May 2023

Month	All items	All items less food and energy
May 2020	1.4	1.9
Jun 2020	1.3	1.5
Jul 2020	1.7	2.1
Aug 2020	1.4	1.8
Sep 2020	1.9	2.2
Oct 2020	1.7	2.0
Nov 2020	1.4	1.5
Dec 2020	1.6	1.7
Jan 2021	1.2	1.2
Feb 2021	1.4	0.9
Mar 2021	2.0	1.4
Apr 2021	3.2	2.6
May 2021	3.2	2.5
Jun 2021	4.1	3.7
Jul 2021	3.5	2.7
Aug 2021	3.7	2.6
Sep 2021	3.8	2.5
Oct 2021	4.3	2.8
Nov 2021	5.0	3.4
Dec 2021	4.4	3.0
Jan 2022	5.1	3.3
Feb 2022	5.1	4.0
Mar 2022	6.1	4.1
Apr 2022	6.3	4.4
May 2022	6.3	3.6
Jun 2022	6.7	4.1
Jul 2022	6.5	4.2
Aug 2022	6.6	4.6
Sep 2022	6.2	5.0
Oct 2022	6.0	4.9
Nov 2022	5.9	4.5
Dec 2022	6.3	5.4
Jan 2023	6.0	5.7
Feb 2023	6.0	5.6
Mar 2023	4.6	5.1
Apr 2023	3.7	4.4
May 2023	3.5	5.1

Food prices declined 0.7 percent for the month of May. Food-at-home prices dropped 1.2 percent, with declines reported in five of the six grocery categories. Eggs and fresh fish and seafood were among the grocery items with lower May prices. By contrast, food-away-from-home prices rose 0.2 percent.

For the year ending May 2023, food prices increased 5.2 percent. Prices for food away from home advanced 7.1 percent, and prices for food at home rose 4.1 percent.

The energy index was unchanged over the month, after a 0.6-percent decline in April. A 1.8-percent rise in gasoline prices was counterbalanced by a 1.0-percent decline in household energy prices. Within household energy, prices declined for natural gas (-1.8 percent) and fuel oil, while electricity prices increased 1.2 percent.

From May 2022 to May 2023, energy prices fell 17.6 percent, fueled by a 23.4-percent drop in gasoline prices. Household energy dropped 11.8 percent over the year, with declines in electricity prices (-9.4 percent), natural gas prices (-5.4 percent), and fuel oil.

The index for all items less food and energy increased 0.4 percent in May. A 0.4-percent rise in shelter prices included increases for owners' equivalent rent (0.3 percent), residential rent (0.2 percent), and lodging away from home. Price increases for public transportation, apparel (1.4 percent), and new and used motor vehicles (0.8 percent) also contributed to the category rise.

Over the year, the index for all items less food and energy increased 5.1 percent. Shelter prices, up 5.8 percent, included a 5.7-percent increase for owners’ equivalent rent and a 6.0-percent increase for residential rent. The new and used motor vehicles index was up 8.7 percent, and the education and communication index rose 2.6 percent.

The June 2023 Consumer Price Index for the New York-Newark-Jersey City area is scheduled to be released on July 12, 2023.

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measures of the average change in prices over time in a fixed market basket of goods and services. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes CPIs for two population groups: (1) a CPI for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) which covers approximately 93 percent of the total U.S. population and (2) a CPI for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers (CPI-W) which covers approximately 29 percent of the total U.S. population. The CPI-U includes, in addition to wage earners and clerical workers, groups such as professional, managerial, and technical workers, the self-employed, short-term workers, the unemployed, and retirees and others not in the labor force.

The CPI is based on prices of food, clothing, shelter, and fuels, transportation fares, charges for doctors' and dentists' services, drugs, and the other goods and services that people buy for day-to-day living. Each month, prices are collected in 75 urban areas across the country from about 6,000 housing units and approximately 22,000 retail establishments—department stores, supermarkets, hospitals, filling stations, and other types of stores and service establishments. All taxes directly associated with the purchase and use of items are included in the index.

The index measures price changes from a designated reference date; for most of the CPI-U the reference base is 1982-84 equals 100. An increase of 7 percent from the reference base, for example, is shown as 107.000.  Alternatively, that relationship can also be expressed as the price of a base period market basket of goods and services rising from $100 to $107. For further details see the CPI home page on the internet at www.bls.gov/cpi and the CPI section of the BLS Handbook of Methods available on the internet at www.bls.gov/opub/hom/cpi/.

In calculating the index, price changes for the various items in each location are averaged together with weights that represent their importance in the spending of the appropriate population group. Local data are then combined to obtain a U.S. city average. Because the sample size of a local area is smaller, the local area index is subject to substantially more sampling and other measurement error than the national index. In addition, local indexes are not adjusted for seasonal influences. As a result, local area indexes show greater volatility than the national index, although their long-term trends are quite similar. NOTE: Area indexes do not measure differences in the level of prices between cities; they only measure the average change in prices for each area since the base period.

The New York-Newark-Jersey City, NY-NJ-PA Core Based Statistical Area includes Bronx, Dutchess, Kings, Nassau, New York, Orange, Putnam, Queens, Richmond, Rockland, Suffolk, and Westchester Counties in New York; Bergen, Essex, Hudson, Hunterdon, Middlesex, Monmouth, Morris, Ocean, Passaic, Somerset, Sussex, and Union Counties in New Jersey; and Pike County in Pennsylvania.

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