{"id":247059,"date":"2025-09-22T19:45:13","date_gmt":"2025-09-22T19:45:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/247059\/"},"modified":"2025-09-22T19:45:13","modified_gmt":"2025-09-22T19:45:13","slug":"inflations-impact-cant-be-seen-through-cpi-says-ex-comptroller","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/247059\/","title":{"rendered":"Inflation\u2019s Impact Can’t Be Seen Through CPI, Says Ex-Comptroller"},"content":{"rendered":"

For decades, the\u00a0Consumer Price Index<\/a>\u00a0(CPI) has measured the cost of living in America.<\/p>\n

However, this figure doesn\u2019t tell the\u00a0full story about inflation<\/a>, former U.S. Comptroller of the Currency\u00a0Gene Ludwig<\/a> argued in an interview with Bloomberg News Monday (Sept. 22).<\/p>\n

\u201cThe CPI is not tremendously relevant to the lived experience of middle- and low-income Americans who don\u2019t buy 80,000 goods and services,\u201d said Ludwig, who was comptroller from 1993 to 1998 and founder of the\u00a0Ludwig Institute for Shared Economic Prosperity<\/a>\u00a0(LISEP).<\/p>\n

Per the Bloomberg report, he is also the author of a forthcoming book, \u201cThe Mismeasurement of America: How Outdated Government Statistics Mask the Economic Struggle of Everyday Americans.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we\u2019re going to have a number that is relevant to them, it\u2019s got to be a smaller group of items that matter to their lives,\u201d Ludwig added.<\/p>\n

According to the report, Ludwig and LISEP have developed an alternate measure they call the True Living Cost.<\/p>\n

Advertisement: Scroll to Continue<\/p>\n

The TLC looks solely at a household\u2019s minimal needs, things like groceries, housing, medical and child care, and transportation. Since 2001, the report said, this index has increased 1.3 times faster than the CPI.<\/p>\n

Ludwig said this disconnect between how inflation affects Americans and government statistics could be seen during the last presidential election.\u00a0Grocery prices<\/a>\u00a0for things like eggs were on voters\u2019 minds, even as President Joe Biden\u2019s administration insisted the cost-of-living crisis was fading.<\/p>\n

Nearly a year after the 2024 election, there are still a number of signs American households are feeling stressed.<\/p>\n

For example, the August 2025\u00a0Survey of Consumer Expectations<\/a>\u00a0from the\u00a0New York Fed<\/a>\u00a0shows that the volatility seen in recent weeks in the labor market, and the continued volatility surrounding tariffs, is impacting how people see their\u00a0current and future situations<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Assessments deteriorated across most metrics, with median short-term inflation expectations creeping up 0.1 percentage point to 3.1%, while three-year expectations remained unchanged at 3.0% and long-term expectations increased 0.3 percentage point to 2.9%.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, research by PYMNTS Intelligence shows that almost 1 out of every 4 households routinely struggle to\u00a0stay on top of monthly bills<\/a>, while half have little or no savings buffer to cushion against rising costs.<\/p>\n

\u201cImportantly, this\u00a0financial fragility<\/a>\u00a0is not limited to low-income groups. Over one-third of adjustable-rate mortgage (ARM) borrowers making more than $100,000 report living paycheck to paycheck, underscoring that high earnings no longer guarantee stability,\u201d PYMNTS wrote last week. \u201cAcross the board, households are making tough choices: deferring large purchases, cutting discretionary spending, and\u00a0using BNPL<\/a>\u00a0or credit cards to manage cash flow.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"For decades, the\u00a0Consumer Price Index\u00a0(CPI) has measured the cost of living in America. However, this figure doesn\u2019t tell…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":247060,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[64,13325,79,266,50,751,67,132,68,756],"class_list":{"0":"post-247059","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-consumer-price-index","10":"tag-economy","11":"tag-inflation","12":"tag-news","13":"tag-pymnts-news","14":"tag-united-states","15":"tag-unitedstates","16":"tag-us","17":"tag-whats-hot"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115249671226008683","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247059","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=247059"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/247059\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/247060"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=247059"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=247059"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=247059"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}