Instructions
1. Look up the CPI for the month you start with and the month you end with from the CPI tables, available from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.Consumer bill index (CPI) is a degree of the changing costs of consumer goods over day. The CPI measures the spending patterns of all urban consumers and urban wage earners and clerical workers. An development in the CPI process that it takes bounteous wealth to obtain the alike magnitude of goods while a incision income that the identical size of money can purchase more goods. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the CPI on a monthly basis.
For instance, if you want to calculate the inflation from January 2000 to January 2001, look up the values to be 168.8 and 175.1.
2. Divide the ending value by the beginning value. In this example, divide 175.1 by 168.8 to receive 1.0373.
3. Subtract 1 from the result to find the rate of inflation for the specified period based on the CPI. In this example, subtract 1 from 1.0373 to receive 0.0373.
4. Multiply the result by 100 to find the inflation percentage based on the CPI. Finishing the example, multiply 0.0373 by 100 to receive 3.73 percent.
