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Consumer Price Index (CPI)

A measure of the average change in prices paid by urban consumers for a fixed basket of goods and services, published monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

How It Works

The Consumer Price Index is the most widely cited measure of inflation in the United States. The BLS collects approximately 94,000 price quotes each month from about 23,000 retail establishments and 43,000 rental housing units across 75 urban areas. The CPI-U (Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers) covers approximately 93% of the U.S. population. Food accounts for roughly 13.5% of the CPI basket, split between food at home (about 8.3%) and food away from home (about 5.2%). Burgernomics uses a subset of CPI data, the Average Price Data program, which tracks actual dollar prices rather than index values, giving a concrete cost figure for each ingredient. The CPI is used to adjust Social Security payments, federal tax brackets, and millions of private contracts. When the CPI rises by 3%, it means the average consumer needs 3% more income to maintain the same standard of living.

Related Terms

  • BLS Average Price Data, A BLS program that reports actual dollar prices (not index values) for approximately 70 food items at the national and regional level, published monthly, the primary data source for the Burgernomics.
  • Basket of Goods, A fixed set of consumer products and services used to measure price changes over time, the CPI basket contains about 80,000 items, while the Burgernomics uses a basket of 5 burger ingredients.
  • Food Inflation, The rate at which food prices increase over time, measured as a percentage change in the food component of the CPI, historically averaging 2-3% annually but spiking to 11.4% in 2022.
  • Real vs. Nominal Prices, Nominal prices are the actual dollar amount you pay today; real prices are adjusted for inflation to compare purchasing power across different time periods.

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About This Definition

This definition is part of the Burgernomics Food Economics Glossary, 25 terms explaining food pricing, inflation, and economic concepts. Written for consumers, journalists, students, and anyone who wants to understand why their groceries cost what they do.

this entity is one of the U.S. fast-food cheeseburger prices concepts that recurs across this site. The definition above is the technical answer; the paragraphs below add the practical context for how the concept connects to the BLS Consumer Price Index and per-chain published menu prices data behind every per-entity page on the site.

In the BLS Consumer Price Index and per-chain published menu prices data, this concept shapes one or more of the fields that drive the per-entity grades and rankings on this site. The methodology page describes which fields feed into which output; this glossary entry documents the underlying term.

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI, 2026.