This Inflation Measure Is Running Hot. It’s Probably Wrong.

For a reason to worry that inflation might not be cooling all that fast, look no further than the Cleveland Fed’s median consumer-price index. But look under the median CPI’s hood, and that worry can quickly fade away.

The Labor Department’s consumer-price index has lately shown that inflation is in retreat. Economists polled by The Wall Street Journal expect the December reading, due out Thursday, will show that overall consumer prices were up 3.2% from a year earlier last month—still a bit warm, but a lot lower than the 6.5% registered in December 2022. Core prices, which exclude food and energy prices in an effort to better reflect inflation’s underlying trend, are expected to show a gain of 3.8% versus a year earlier, which compares with 5.7% in December 2022.