Escalation clauses are often used to facilitate the creation of long-term contracts as wages or prices fluctuate over time. In these contract negotiations, the Consumer Price Index (CPI) is one of the most frequently used measurements for applying or ...

The Consumer Price Index “is a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services,” according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), which issues the monthly report.

Measuring inflation takes resources, but both the public and the U.S. government itself benefit from having an accurate read on price changes.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics expanded its use of a technique to fill in gaps in inflation data it wasn’t able to collect through traditional methods, adding to concerns about the agency’s ability to reliably report on key US economic figures.