The quickest way to find the current U.S. inflation rate is to visit the Bureau of Labor Statistics website at bls.gov/cpi, where the Consumer Price Index (CPI) report is published monthly. This single number tells you how much prices have risen, on average, compared to the same month a year ago. But depending on what you need the inflation rate for, there are several ways to find, interpret, and even calculate it yourself.
Check the CPI Report From the BLS
The Consumer Price Index is the most widely cited measure of inflation in the United States. The Bureau of Labor Statistics releases a new CPI report once a month, typically around the 10th to 14th of the following month at 8:30 a.m. Eastern Time. The report covers the prior month’s price changes across categories like housing, food, transportation, medical care, and energy.
When you land on the BLS CPI page, you’ll see the latest 12-month percent change prominently displayed. That percentage is the headline inflation rate most news outlets report. You can also dig into subcategories to see, for example, how much food prices rose compared to energy prices. The BLS provides interactive tools and downloadable data tables going back decades, which is useful if you need historical inflation rates for a school project, financial plan, or business forecast.
Use the BLS Inflation Calculator
If you want to know what a dollar amount from a past year is worth today, the BLS offers a free online inflation calculator at bls.gov/data/inflation_calculator.htm. You enter a dollar amount and two time periods, and it converts the value using CPI data. This is the simplest approach when you just need a quick answer to questions like “what would $50,000 in 2010 be worth now?”
The Formula Behind the Numbers
The inflation rate is calculated by comparing the price of a fixed “basket” of goods and services at two different points in time. The formula is straightforward:
Inflation Rate = ((Price Index in Current Period – Price Index in Previous Period) / Price Index in Previous Period) x 100
For example, if the CPI was 300 last January and 312 this January, the annual inflation rate would be ((312 – 300) / 300) x 100, or 4%. The BLS constructs the price index by tracking thousands of specific items, multiplying each item’s quantity by its current price, summing the total, and comparing that to the same basket valued at base-period prices. You never need to do this math yourself for the national rate, but understanding the formula helps you interpret what the number actually means and spot when a figure is being used out of context.
CPI vs. PCE: Two Measures of Inflation
You’ll sometimes hear about a different inflation gauge called the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) price index, published by the Bureau of Economic Analysis. The Federal Reserve prefers the PCE index when setting interest rate policy, so it matters if you’re trying to understand what the Fed is reacting to.
The two indexes differ in a few important ways. The CPI only counts what households pay out of pocket, while the PCE also includes spending made on behalf of consumers, like employer-paid health insurance and government programs such as Medicare. This means medical costs carry more weight in the PCE. The CPI also uses a fixed-basket approach that doesn’t adjust when consumers switch to cheaper substitutes (say, buying chicken instead of beef when beef prices spike). The PCE formula accounts for that substitution, which tends to make the PCE inflation rate run slightly lower than the CPI.
For everyday purposes, the CPI is the number that affects your cost-of-living adjustments on Social Security, federal tax bracket changes, and most wage negotiations. The PCE is more relevant if you’re following Federal Reserve decisions. You can find PCE data at bea.gov.
Find Inflation Rates for Other Countries
If you need inflation data outside the United States, the World Bank maintains a global inflation database covering up to 209 countries with data from 1970 through 2025. It includes six different measures: headline CPI inflation, food CPI inflation, energy CPI inflation, core CPI inflation (which strips out volatile food and energy prices), producer price index inflation, and GDP deflator. The data is available in annual, quarterly, and monthly frequencies, and you can download it in Excel or Stata format from the World Bank’s research page.
Most countries also have their own national statistics agencies that publish inflation data on a schedule similar to the BLS. For aggregate views comparing regions, the World Bank database also provides inflation figures for advanced economies, emerging markets, and the global economy as a whole.
Where to Find Inflation Forecasts
Past inflation is a matter of record. Future inflation is a matter of expectation, and expectations influence everything from mortgage rates to stock prices. The Federal Reserve Bank of New York publishes the Survey of Consumer Expectations, a monthly internet-based survey of roughly 1,300 household heads across the country. It reports what consumers expect inflation to be one year and three years ahead, along with the range of uncertainty around those expectations.
You can access the survey results, downloadable data, and charts at the New York Fed’s website under the Center for Microeconomic Data. Professional forecasters also publish inflation projections. The Philadelphia Fed’s Survey of Professional Forecasters and the Federal Reserve’s own Summary of Economic Projections (released quarterly after certain policy meetings) are two widely followed sources.
Estimate Your Personal Inflation Rate
The national CPI tracks a broad basket of goods and services weighted to reflect the average urban consumer. Your actual cost-of-living increase could be higher or lower depending on what you spend money on. If you spend a large share of your income on rent and groceries, and those categories are rising faster than the overall index, your personal inflation rate is above the headline number.
To get a rough personal inflation rate, start by listing your major spending categories: housing, food, transportation, utilities, healthcare, and anything else that takes a significant share of your budget. Then look up the CPI subcategory data for each one on the BLS website. Weight each category by the share of your monthly spending it represents. Multiply each category’s inflation rate by its weight, then add up the results. The total is a rough approximation of how much your cost of living actually changed.
For example, if housing is 40% of your budget and housing prices rose 5%, that contributes 2 percentage points to your personal rate. If food is 15% of your budget and food prices rose 3%, that adds 0.45 percentage points. Repeat for each category, sum the results, and you have a number that reflects your life more accurately than the national average.