Brett Matsumoto

Measurement Issues in Consumer Price Indexes

I contributed a chapter to the Research Handbook on Inflation about measurement issues for consumer price indexes. It covers practical issues in measuring consumer prices, recent progress, and future possible improvements. You can find a working paper version here: www.bls.gov/osmr/researc...

If you’re interested in the distribution of PI, BEA produces distributional statistics: www.bea.gov/data/special...

First day tomorrow.

I'll be starting a detail at the Council of Economic Advisers later this month. I'll be on loan from my home agency for the next year.

Good news: CPS sample may not be reduced!
The House Education & Workforce Committee recommends giving BLS $6M more in 2025. BLS can use this to sustain data quality and granular stats.
Next, the CR must pass the House & Senate. In 2026, BLS needs $25M more to modernize CPS.
But, celebrate a bit.

Atl fed fixed it yesterday.

The US Census Bureau is adding refugees to its immigrant count The U.S. Census Bureau is changing how it counts international migration in its annual population estimates

Looks like Census pop estimates come Thursday, and they modified the methods to account for immigration. It will be interesting to see how this affects the gap with other estimates (eg CBO): abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory...

Probably what has changed is the media/social media environment. I'm not sure this issue ever reached the general public.

Funny Joey mentions 1992 since there were big GDP revisions that year to 1991q1 data (caused by labor data revisions) that led to accusations of political bias at the BEA. The GAO issued a report in 93 refuting the allegations of political bias: www.gao.gov/assets/ggd-9...

Hi