The Everyday Person Consumer Price Index
By LaRue Gibson on December 30, 2025
Our friends at Strategas Securities LLC developed the Everyday Person Consumer Price Index [EPCPI] to better understand how the average consumer experience inflation in their world. The Everyday Person CPI consists only of the components every consumer must buy – Food, Energy, Shelter, Insurance, and Children’s clothing. Understanding how the everyday person experiences their cost of living vis-à-vis their wages can inform us about the animal spirits of the consumers in our economy. The EPCPI essentially is a “core” measure of inflation in the way someone without a PhD in Economics might think of it. The EPCPI will illustrate the deleterious effects of cumulative inflation during a period of relatively stagnant wages or the wealth effect of wages that grow more quickly than inflation.
THE EVERYDAY PERSON CPI GROWING FASTER THAN HEADLINE YEAR OVER YEAR INFLATION
THERE ARE SIGNS OF IMPROVEMENT VS LAST MONTH THOUGH
As of November 2025, the EPCPI declined on a year over year basis to 2.9% but outpaced the headline measure of the CPI of 2.7%. This would suggest that while the gap between earnings and inflation has been closing, the cumulative effects of inflation are still a problem for the U.S. consumer who looks at price levels rather than month over month or year over year changes. [Source: Strategas Securities LLC 2025.12.18].
Note: Everyday Person Take-Home Pay defined as surplus/deficit vs inflation in necessities. Subsectors list major CPI components from which the Everyday Person measure selects essentials. Not all components are listed. All October data are interpolations based on official September & November data. No Motor Vehicle Insurance update has been published since September.
EVERYDAY PERSON PRICE INCREASES HAVE SLOWED SINCE JANUARY 2025 ALLOWING WAGES TO NARROW THE GAP
THE CUMULATIVE WAGE PICTURE DETERIORATED
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