Calculated Risk: YoY Measures of Inflation: Services, Goods and Shelter

by Calculated Risk on 6/11/2025 08:53:00 AM

Here are a few measures of inflation:

The first graph is the one Fed Chair Powell had mentioned two years ago when services less rent of shelter was up around 8% year-over-year.  This declined and is now up 3.5% YoY.

Click on graph for larger image.

This graph shows the YoY price change for Services and Services less rent of shelter through May 2025.

The second graph shows that goods prices started to increase year-over-year (YoY) in 2020 and accelerated in 2021 due to both strong demand and supply chain disruptions.

Durables were unchanged YoY as of May 2025, up from -0.4% YoY in April.

Commodities less food and energy commodities were at 0.3% YoY in May, up from 0.2% YoY in April.

Here is a graph of the year-over-year change in shelter from the CPI report (through May) and housing from the PCE report (through April)

Shelter was up 3.9% year-over-year in May, down from 4.0% in April. Housing (PCE) was up 4.2% YoY in April, down from 4.3% in March.

This is still catching up with private new lease data (this includes renewals whereas private data is mostly for new leases).

Core CPI ex-shelter was up 1.9% YoY in May.  This key measure has been at or below the Fed’s target for 9 of the last 13 months.