CPI Basket
The fixed representative sample of goods and services used to measure consumer price changes and calculate the CPI.
What is CPI Basket?
The CPI basket (or market basket) is the representative set of goods and services selected by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) to track consumer price changes and calculate the US Consumer Price Index. It is constructed from household expenditure surveys covering approximately 24,000 households and priced using 80,000 monthly retail quotes. The basket is organized into eight major categories—food and beverages, housing, apparel, transportation, medical care, recreation, education and communication, and other goods and services—each assigned a weight reflecting its share of typical consumer spending. Weights are updated every two years (previously every decade) based on the Consumer Expenditure Survey. The basket's fixed composition means it does not automatically adjust when consumers substitute cheaper alternatives for more expensive goods, introducing upward bias relative to a cost-of-living index.
Example
As of the 2021–2022 CPI weight revision, the housing (shelter) component holds the largest single weight in the US CPI basket at approximately 34.4%, followed by food at 13.5% and energy at 7.3%. This composition explains why the sharp rent and housing cost increases of 2022–2023 continued to push headline CPI higher even as energy prices fell, since shelter costs—which are measured with a significant lag through 'owners' equivalent rent'—made up more than a third of the total index.