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Here is a table showing the annualized change over the past five months for Headline and Core CPI. I've also included each of the eight components of Headline CPI and a separate entry for Energy, which is a collection of sub-indexes in Housing and Transportation. We can make some inferences about how inflation is impacting our personal expenses depending on our relative exposure to the individual components.

The Trends in Headline and Core CPI

The chart below shows Headline and Core CPI for urban consumers since 2007. Core CPI excludes the two most volatile components, food and energy.

Core CPI has been on the rise but is still below the Fed's inflation target of 2%. However, the more attention-grabbing headline CPI has more than doubled since January. If we extrapolate the latest rise over the few months, Core CPI would hit the Fed's target rate by at some point during the third quarter.

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