Inflation and the Basket of Goods

There is an interesting interactive graph here at the NYT showing the different components of the US basket of goods, used to calculate inflation.

• It shows the relative importance of different food groups. It also shows how the different food groups have changed in importance in the past 12 months.
• As expected food and oil related goods have become more expensive and therefore carry a bigger weighting.
• Other goods like clothes, tvs and computers have declined in importance. Presumably because they carry are relatively cheaper and / or people are buying relatively fewer ‘luxury goods’

See also:

• How is Inflation calculated
• Definition of Inflation