US Consumer Price Index Level (CPIAUCSL)
The US Consumer Price Index level (CPIAUCSL) from January 1947 to the latest release (334.13 for August 2026). The headline US inflation gauge in level terms. Useful for visualising compounded inflation across decades, the 2021-2022 post-COVID acceleration, and what has followed since. AUD-resident traders use the CPI level to project real purchasing power on US-listed assets and to size USD-denominated holdings against multi-year inflation expectations. Refreshed from FRED twice a day, recession-shaded.
Chart
Monthly seasonally adjusted CPIAUCSL from January 1947. Linear scale. The slope of the curve is the inflation rate; visible slope changes mark inflation regime shifts.
What is the CPI level?
The Consumer Price Index measures the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a representative basket of consumer goods and services. The Bureau of Labor Statistics builds the basket from extensive household-spending surveys and prices it monthly across all major US metropolitan areas.
CPIAUCSL is the All Urban Consumers, Seasonally Adjusted series - the standard reference series used by the Federal Reserve, the Treasury, and almost all macro research. The index is anchored at 100 across the 1982-1984 average. Each new monthly reading is the price of the basket in that month divided by the 1982-1984 average price, times 100.
Why AU traders watch US CPI
- Fed reaction function. Monthly US CPI releases (usually between the 10th and 15th of the month, 8:30 ET) are the highest-vol macro events in financial markets. A surprise of a tenth of a point can reprice the whole US rates curve and the dollar within minutes, and AUD/USD moves with them. Set position size on AUD/USD ahead of US CPI prints.
- Real-return calculation on USD holdings. If you hold US-listed shares or US-denominated cash, the CPI level tells you how much real purchasing power has eroded across your holding period. A 6 percent USD nominal return when CPI rises 4 percent = 2 percent real return.
- Inflation-linked products. US TIPS (Treasury Inflation-Protected Securities) are indexed to CPI-U. Australian-resident traders accessing US TIPS via ASX-listed ETFs or US brokers should track CPI level directly to understand carry.
Methodology
- Source. FRED series CPIAUCSL (Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, Seasonally Adjusted, monthly).
- Endpoint. Public fredgraph.csv (no API key required).
- Reference period. Index = 100 across 1982-1984 average.
- Recession shading. NBER-dated US recessions from 2001 onwards (2001, 2007-09, 2020). Earlier recessions are not shaded.
- Refresh cadence. An automated cloud refresh pulls the series from FRED twice a day (07:30 and 13:30 Sydney time) and the site rebuilds when the data changes. If FRED is unreachable, the last good data is kept. There is no October 2025 point: BLS did not publish October 2025 CPI because of the US government shutdown.
Related tools
- CPI Inflation (YoY %) - the rate-of-change view; what the Fed actually targets.
- Core PCE Inflation - the Fed's preferred inflation gauge.
- Fed Funds Rate - the policy response to inflation.
- 30-Year Mortgage Rate - the housing transmission of policy.
- M2 Money Supply - the upstream liquidity variable.
Frequently asked questions
The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPIAUCSL) is an index measuring the average price level of a basket of goods and services purchased by urban US households. It is anchored at 100 across the 1982-1984 reference period. The latest reading of 334.13 (August 2026) means the same basket costs about 3.34 times what it cost in the early 1980s. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes the index monthly. CPIAUCSL is the seasonally adjusted version, the standard for time-series analysis.
They answer different questions. CPI YoY tells you how fast prices are accelerating or decelerating right now (the policy-relevant rate). CPI level tells you the cumulative purchasing-power erosion across time (the wealth-relevant level). For Fed-watching and short-horizon trading, YoY matters more. For long-term real-return calculations on USD-denominated assets, level matters more. Both are sourced here from the same underlying FRED CPIAUCSL series.
US CPI drives Fed policy expectations, which drives the entire US rates curve, which drives AUD/USD, which drives the AUD value of every USD-denominated asset an Australian holds. Direct linkages: high US CPI prints (e.g. the 9.1 percent YoY peak in June 2022) drive aggressive Fed hike expectations, push the USD higher, push AUD/USD lower, compress AUD-real returns on US holdings. Soft US CPI prints have the opposite effect.
No. The BLS updates the expenditure weights every year (every two years before 2023) to reflect changing spending patterns. The methodology has shifted toward hedonic adjustments for tech goods and the inclusion of owners' equivalent rent for housing. Critics argue these adjustments understate true inflation; defenders argue they correctly account for quality improvements. The chart shows whatever the BLS currently publishes, with the same continuity FRED maintains.
Linear. Over the full history since 1947 the index has risen roughly 16-fold, so the early decades look flat on a linear axis; use the zoom buttons to focus on any recent window. Log scale matters most for series that compound by orders of magnitude (M2 money supply, Bitcoin price). For CPI level, linear preserves the visual sense of recent acceleration and deceleration phases.
FRED series CPIAUCSL (seasonally adjusted monthly) from the public fredgraph.csv endpoint. An automated refresh pulls it twice a day (07:30 and 13:30 Sydney time) and the site rebuilds when the data changes. If FRED is temporarily unreachable, the last good data is kept.
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