1052 sats \ 5 replies \ @Undisciplined 13 May \ on: US BLS has dropped Coffee, Canned Tomatoes, and Vegetable Oil from CPI Calcs econ
You have to be somewhat careful here, because these categories are very specific. Discontinuing a category is not the same as not tracking the items that were in that category, as they may be covered by another category that is being tracked.
That said, it is good to be on alert for this kind of data manipulation, since they do it all the time.
Maybe....I do notice via shrinkflation that you hardly ever see "1 lb" of coffee anymore. Its usually packaged in 12 or 14oz bags.
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The coffee description is what made me think about this.
They may have made a new category that would included both cans and bags of the same size range. We buy our coffee at Costco, so ours would have to be captured in another category entirely.
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I think you are right.
I think this is some old "expired" category. When I pull data for this category number, the last data is from 1988?
So there must be another category its reporting under.
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The site is wonky, but if you go to:
And then choose "Average Price Data -- One Screen" that should take you where you can get individual data
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