From AIER today:
AIER’s proprietary Everyday Price Index (EPI) vaulted 2.5 percent to 307.4 in March 2026, its second-largest monthly increase back to January 2020 (the first was an increase of 2.9 percent in March 2022). Of the 24 price categories that compose the EPI, fourteen rose, two were unchanged, and eight declined. Unsurprisingly, the largest jumps in price occurred in motor fuel, housing fuels and utilities, and food away from home. Prescription drugs, internet services, and food at home declined the most. (The juxtaposition of price changes in the food away from home versus food at home categories likely reflects the gasoline pass-through of food delivery service costs.)
Here’s a comparison of AIER’s EPI against other price indices:
Figure 1: CPI all urban (bold black), implied CPI using U.Michigan expected inflation (gray square), CPI ex-shelter (green), AIER Everyday Price Index (red), all in logs 2025M01=0. April CPI is Cleveland Fed nowcast. Source: BLS via FRED, AIER, Cleveland Fed, U.Michigan, and author’s calculations.
Over the 2022M01-2026M03 period (forecasts from 2021M01 to 2025M03), inflation has exceeded Michigan expectations about 37 bps, not statistically significantly different from zero. If the U.Michigan mean forecast is correct, then the price level will by 8% higher (in log terms, or 8.7%) in 2027M03 than when Trump took office the second time.
The delivery cost component of food away from home is a decent analog for transportation costs in general. Gonna see more and passthrough as high fuel costs persist.
Watching sticky vs non-sticky price inflation will be interesting during this new inflationary episode. If high fuel prices begin to jack up sticky price measures, hang on to your hat.
Utterly off topic – first one to explain why Swalwell’s zipper problem is mathematical good news for Democrats gets a cookie.
Reduces the number of Democrats running for Gov. in CA, where the top two in the OPEN primary go on to the general in the fall. The large number of Democrats running splits the vote so much that it gives Republicans a strong chance to capture both top-two slots, ensuring a Republican governor for CA after the next election. Redistributing Swalwell’s votes will substantially help the Democrats get at least one of the top two, which would virtually guarantee CA a Democratic governor.
Cookie!
Also don’t want a Spitzer problem. Gotta get rid of problems before they fester.
Reduction of vote dilution.
Your cookie will be dilvered just a few secomds slower.