Source:Tim Iacono--Before 1983, CPI measured housing inflation by looking at what it cost to own a home (house prices, mortgage, property taxes). After 83, BLS changed the housing component, using the concept of Owners Equivalent Rent. Revert back to the true cost of housing, and Core CPI spikes to a more realistic 5.3%.BLS perversely lowers Owners Equivalent Rent further as utility costs go up: CPI calculated the pure rent of the matched renters by removing the value of any landlord-provide utilities.from bigpicture. |