Consumer Prices Rose 3.4% Over the Year to August. Strip Out Energy and Food and the Rate Is 2.4%.

Consumer prices rose 0.4% in August on a seasonally adjusted basis and 3.4% over the twelve months ended in August, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on September 11. The index for all items less food and energy - the core measure - rose 0.3% in the month and 2.4% over the year. The gap between those two annual rates, a full percentage point, is almost entirely energy.

Where the monthly increase came from

The BLS attributes more than a third of the monthly all-items increase to one line: gasoline, which rose 3.9% in August. The broader energy index rose 2.1% in the month and is 16.3% higher than a year ago.

• Gasoline: +3.9% in the month, +27.4% over twelve months.
• Energy overall: +2.1% in the month, +16.3% over twelve months.
• Electricity: -0.2% in the month, +3.8% over twelve months.
• Utility (piped) gas: -1.1% in the month, +4.4% over twelve months.

The two utility lines fell in the month. The increase in the energy index is a motor-fuel story, not a household-energy story.

Headline against core

Headline CPI includes food and energy; core excludes both, on the reasoning that those two categories move sharply for reasons that do not persist. In August the two measures tell different stories: 3.4% against 2.4%. Which of the two is the better guide depends on whether the energy move holds, and a single month's release cannot answer that.

Shelter, the largest single component of the core index, rose 0.3% in the month and 3.0% over the year. Food at home was unchanged in August and is up 2.2% over twelve months; food away from home rose 0.3% and is up 3.4%.

The rest of the basket, over twelve months

• Airline fares: +23.4%.
• Apparel: +3.6%.
• New vehicles: +0.6%.
• Medical care: +1.6% (the index fell 0.2% in August).
• Used cars and trucks: -2.3%.
• Motor vehicle insurance: -5.1%.

Motor vehicle insurance is worth noting for readers who followed the category through 2023 and 2024, when it was one of the fastest-rising lines in the index. It is now falling on a twelve-month basis.

The index level itself

The all-items index stood at 334.980 on the 1982-84 = 100 base. That number is what escalation clauses, some benefit formulas and a range of private contracts reference directly, which is why the BLS publishes it alongside the percentage changes.

This article describes a statistical release and is not investment advice.