So, even before the existence of the CPI, inflation was on the minds of the public and in the headlines of the news. Only a sharp recession in 1921 would produce a decline. When the CPI was finally created in 1921 and a time series back to 1913 was established, it would show food prices more than doubling from 1913 to 1920. Whatever the home farmers may or may not have done, however, the coming years would produce more price increases. Smoked bacon had increased 111.6 percent, for example. Moreover, most meat prices were considerably higher in 1913 than they were throughout the 1890s. The bulletin’s data showed the reason for the League’s concern: although the price of several staples had fallen from January to February, meat prices were up. Tell the home farmers that is up to them to check soaring prices.” 1Ī few months later, the same newspaper reported on a bulletin issued by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS, the Bureau). In huge print, a headline proclaims their solution: “Raise meat animals, housewives advise. Meat prices are up, and the group wants something done about it. It’s March 15, 1913, and according to The New York Times, the National Housewives League is concerned. Largest 12-month decrease: June 1920–June 1921, 15.8 percentĪnnualized increase of major components, 1913–1929: Largest 12-month increase: June 1919–June 1920, 23.7 percent All-Items CPI: total increase, 72.7 percent 3.5 percent annually.Prices remain relatively stable during most of the 1920s.Prices fall during the postwar recession.Sharp inflation marks the World War I era.Food prices are the focus as the modern CPI is created.This article looks at major trends in price change from one subperiod to the next and at how Americans and their leaders regarded those trends and reacted to them. Different subperiods saw different trends in price movement, so each generation of Americans had a different experience of price change from the ones before and after it. Over those 100 years, the general public and policymakers have focused almost constantly on inflation they have feared it, bemoaned it, sought it, and even tried to whip it. economy, through war and peace, booms and recessions. For 100 years, the index has been a major measure of consumer inflation in the U.S. The year 2013 marked, in a sense, the 100th anniversary of the Consumer Price Index (CPI), because 1913 is the first year for which official CPI data became available.
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