This dataset contains historic consumer price index (CPI) data including estimates before the modern U.S. CPI, retrieved from the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
Details
These details are taken from https://www.minneapolisfed.org/about-us/monetary-policy/inflation-calculator/consumer-price-index-1800- and edited.
Official U.S. data go back to 1913 for a consumer price index (CPI) comparable to what the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) still calculates today. The table below reflects the following historical series as initially compiled by the BLS for the Handbook of Labor Statistics, with modern CPI data from 1913 to the present day:
1800 to 1851 - Index of Prices Paid by Vermont Farmers for Family Living
1851 to 1890 - Consumer Price Index by Ethel D. Hoover
1890 to 1912 - Cost of Living Index by Albert Rees
1913 to 1977 - Consumer Price Index (CPI)
1978 to present - Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers (CPI-U)
The dataset uses 1967 as the index (1967=100). With the caveat that data before 1913 should be considered estimates To find out how much a price in Year 1 would be in Year 2 dollars:
Year 2 Price = Year 1 Price x (Year 2 CPI/Year 1 CPI)
Variables
year: date of CPI, or estimate of CPI.annual_average_index: average annual CPI, or estimate of average annual CPI.annual_percentage_change: annual percentage change of the CPI.
Examples
head(minneapolisfed_cpi)
#> # A tibble: 6 × 3
#> year annual_average_index annual_percentage_change
#> <int> <dbl> <dbl>
#> 1 1800 51 NA
#> 2 1801 50 -2
#> 3 1802 43 -14
#> 4 1803 45 4.7
#> 5 1804 45 0
#> 6 1805 45 0