WTF is the CPI and Why is it Trending?
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Editorial credit: Chris Baldwin, Publisher at Baldwin Economic Justice Report
Because every time the government drops a new inflation number, cable news acts like it's the damn weather report—"2.7% with a chance of relief!"—while you're standing in a checkout line watching your total climb like it's training for the Olympics.
CPI stands for Consumer Price Index, and it's supposed to measure how prices are changing for everyday stuff. But what people hear is: "Your pain is up or down." And what we keep getting is a tidy headline that lets politicians and pundits spin rising prices as "cooling inflation" while rent still has its boot on your neck, groceries still cost disrespectful amounts, and wages are still trying to catch a train that left the station two years ago.
So yeah—it's trending. Because people aren't stupid, we're exhausted, and we're tired of being told the economy is "improving" by the same folks who don't have to choose between prescriptions and dinner. By the same folks building ballrooms for billionaires.
What the latest CPI report actually says
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), in December 2025:
- CPI-U rose 0.3% month-over-month (seasonally adjusted)
- CPI-U rose 2.7% over the last 12 months (not seasonally adjusted)
- Core CPI (all items less food and energy) rose 0.2% in December and 2.6% over the year
- BLS notes a major caveat: some 2025 months have missing values due to the federal government shutdown/lapse in appropriations, which complicates clean month-to-month comparisons
Source: BLS CPI News Release (Dec 2025)
Translation for us working folks: "Overall inflation" can fall while your budget still gets squeezed
Here's the part policymakers love to mumble through: inflation cooling doesn't mean prices go back down. It means prices are still rising—just more slowly.
So if your rent jumped, your grocery bill jumped, your insurance jumped, and your wages didn't keep pace... you're not "imagining things." You're doing math.
BLS itself explains purchasing power plainly: when prices rise, the purchasing power of a dollar falls—your money buys less unless your income rises too.
Buying power, explained without the economics cosplay
Think of inflation like this:
If prices rise and your pay doesn't, you're getting a pay cut in real life, even if your paycheck number stayed the same.
If your wages rise slower than prices, you're still losing ground—just quietly, month after month, bill after bill.
That's why "inflation is down" can coexist with "I'm still struggling." Both can be true at the same time.
Now let's talk about tariffs: yes, they're a tax on consumers (no matter how they're marketed)
A tariff is a tax on imported goods. Full stop.
And here's the part some politicians try to Jedi-mind-trick you about: the foreign country doesn't mail your government a check out of kindness. The tariff is paid at the border by the importer—and then it gets passed along through the supply chain until it reaches its final form: you, at the register.
The Tax Policy Center explains it plainly: the importer pays the tariff, and businesses try to pass those higher costs to consumers.
Source: Tax Policy Center: What Is a Tariff and Who Pays It?
The Tax Foundation defines a tariff as a tax on imports and notes tariffs raise prices and reduce available quantities for U.S. consumers.
Source: Tax Foundation: Tariffs
If you want the "corporations are literally saying it out loud" version, ITEP documents companies describing how they pass tariff costs into prices.
Source: ITEP: Tariffs function as a tax on U.S. importers/consumers
So when a government sells tariffs as "tough" or "strategic," but the result is higher prices for basics, that's not strength—that's self-inflicted pain dressed up as policy. A tax is still a tax, even if you slap a flag sticker on it and call it "economic patriotism."
And unlike a tax refund—which at least gives you your own money back eventually—tariffs just take more money out of your pocket right now, every time you buy something, with no check coming in April to soften the blow. You're funding the government's trade war in real time, at the register, with zero interest, zero rebate, and zero say in whether you want to participate.
That's not an economic strategy. That's a shakedown with a press release.
And when that pain is justified through market manipulation and incompetence, working families aren't collateral damage—we're the business model.
The bottom line
- Inflation is cooler than it was, but the costs that define daily life (especially housing and food) still weigh heavily.
- Missing data from government shutdown will modify the trend slightly. I'm guessing inflation will tick higher once the data is backfilled.
- Buying power is the real battlefield—what your paycheck can actually do, not what it says on paper.
- Tariffs are a consumer tax, and pretending otherwise is political theater with your grocery bill as the prop.
What you can do this week (real-world survival mode)
Pressure-test your budget
List your "non-negotiables" (rent, utilities, food, meds) and cut subscriptions, not groceries.
Ask for a raise with receipts
Not vibes—bring numbers (rent increase, commute costs, childcare).
Shop the silent killers
Auto insurance, internet, cell plans. Companies count on your inertia.
And politically?
Demand your representatives push for policies that reduce actual household costs—not policies that create new price pressures and then blame the fallout on everyone except the people who caused it.
Let's start with Medicare for all and Universal Basic Income.
Power to the people. -CB
🤖 A Note About Our Editorial Process
This newsletter is crafted with the help of Dr. Shirley J. Droid, our Deep Agent research assistant (named after physicist Dr. Shirley Ann Jackson—because if you're going to use AI, honor the legends!). As your self-appointed Head of AI Editorials, I use Dr. Shirley J. Droid to research, draft, and format these posts. But the analysis, perspective, and commitment to economic justice? That's 100% human, 100% me.
✊🏾Power to the people.
— Chris Baldwin
Publisher, Baldwin Economic Justice Report
