vs Last Month
−0.10 pts
Slight cooling. Markets watch every monthly print.
Today's U.S. Inflation Rate
CPI-U · 12-Month % Change
3.10
%
-0.10 pts
vs. last month (3.20%)
Past 12 months
Range 2.60 – 3.50
Fed Target2.0%
vs Last Year-0.30
2022 Peak9.06%
Inflation cooled to 3.10% in the latest release — but the "last mile" to the Fed's 2% target is still 110 bps away. At today's pace, $1,000 today is worth $970 in a year. Cash held outside a yield-bearing account is losing real value.
Historical trend
Monthly year-over-year inflation. Mid-month BLS release.
Source: FRED · CPIAUCSL · Year-over-year % change.
The long view: since 1948
Seventy-five years of U.S. inflation. The 70s look very different.
Peak 14.76% · March 1980
Trough −2.10% · July 2009
Today 3.10% · May 13, 2026
How today stacks up
Today's 3.10% in plain context.
vs Last Year
−0.30 pts
Continued disinflation from the 2022 peak.
5-Year Average
4.10%
Includes 2022's surge. Today is 100 bps below.
Fed 2% Target
+1.1 pts
Still 110 bps above target. Why cuts are slow.
Use this number
Tools to fight inflation in your own budget.
About the U.S. Inflation Rate
The U.S. inflation rate shown here is the year-over-year percent change in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U), the headline measure most people see in news reports. It's computed monthly by the Bureau of Labor Statistics from a basket of roughly 80,000 prices on goods and services — food, energy, shelter, transportation, medical care, recreation, education, apparel. When inflation is 3.1%, it means the same basket cost 3.1% more this May than last May.
Why the Fed targets 2% but tolerates higher
The Fed's official inflation target is 2% on the core PCE measure (a different but related index that strips out food and energy). CPI-U inflation typically runs about 0.3% above core PCE, so a 2% PCE target maps to roughly 2.3% CPI. Today's 3.10% reading is therefore still meaningfully above the Fed's comfort zone — which is why monetary policy is easing only gradually rather than rapidly. The "last mile" from 3% to 2% has historically been the hardest in disinflation episodes.
What today's inflation does to your money
At 3.10%, $1,000 today buys what $970 will buy a year from now — or alternatively, you'd need $1,031.96 next May to maintain the same purchasing power. Over 10 years at 3.10%, $100,000 of cash erodes to about $73,600 in real purchasing power. This is why parking large amounts of money in low-yield checking accounts is a slow-motion loss: the nominal dollar count stays flat while real wealth shrinks.
Related trackers
Other live numbers that move with — or against — this one.
Frequently asked
What this number means, and what it doesn't.
There are several inflation measures: CPI-U headline (this number, includes food + energy), Core CPI (excludes volatile food + energy), PCE (Fed's preferred measure, different basket weights), and Core PCE (Fed's actual 2% target). Reporters often use them interchangeably even though they typically differ by 0.2–0.8 points.
Often it doesn't match your personal inflation rate. The CPI basket is averaged across all U.S. urban consumers. If you spend disproportionately on food, gas, or rent (all of which inflate faster than the average), your felt inflation can be 2–4 points higher than the headline. The BLS publishes sub-indexes for each category.
The BLS publishes CPI on a fixed schedule around the 10th–15th of each month at 8:30 AM ET, reporting the prior month's data. The next release date is shown in the methodology footer. Markets react instantly to surprises in either direction.
Core inflation excludes food and energy because those prices are extremely volatile (gasoline can swing 30% in a month). The Fed tracks core to see the underlying inflation trend without the noise. Headline matters for households; core matters for policy.
Yes — CPI-U peaked at 9.06% YoY in June 2022, the highest since November 1981. It has since fallen to 3.10%. Wages, however, did not keep up; real (inflation-adjusted) wages fell for most of 2022 before recovering through 2023–24.
Methodology
Source
Pulled from FRED · CPIAUCSL and cached on the EvvyTools server.
Update schedule
Refreshed automatically by our cron whenever the upstream source publishes a new value. Historical values are not revised after publication.
How we compute
Display value is the raw published number, unrounded. Comparison stats use the closest available reference date. We never edit the underlying data.