Education · August 2026
The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) is how the country tracks the national rate of price change. TrueCOLA sits beside that official report. The margin is net income minus required costs. The margin is not an inflation rate and does not replace the CPI.
BLS publishes two versions of the Consumer Price Index from the same prices. The CPI-U covers all urban consumers, about 93 percent of Americans: wage earners, salaried workers, the self-employed, the unemployed, and retirees in metropolitan and micropolitan counties. The CPI-W covers the urban households that earn more than half of their income from clerical or wage jobs and had an earner working 37 weeks or more in the past year, about 29 percent. Federal law uses the CPI-W to adjust Social Security income each year.
Every CPI-W household is also a CPI-U household. The two are not separate groups. About 7 percent of Americans, in rural counties, on farms, in the armed forces, or in institutions, are in neither.
The federal government uses the chained CPI-U for income tax brackets and the CPI-U for inflation-protected bonds. It uses the CPI-W for Social Security, SSI, federal and military retirement, railroad retirement, and veterans' benefits.
| Expenditure Basket | CPI-U (Group A) | CPI-W (Group B) |
|---|---|---|
| Food and beverages | 14.539 | 15.579 |
| Housing | 44.469 | 42.658 |
| Apparel | 2.368 | 2.668 |
| Transportation | 16.316 | 18.256 |
| Medical care | 8.423 | 7.596 |
| Recreation | 5.137 | 4.428 |
| Education and communication | 5.846 | 5.942 |
| Other goods and services | 2.902 | 2.873 |
| All items | 100.000 | 100.000 |
Housing subcomponents: Rent of primary residence: 7.840 (CPI-U) | 10.697 (CPI-W). Owners' equivalent rent: 26.204 (CPI-U) | 21.798 (CPI-W).
Each income group uses the complete weight set of one index. Group A rows use the CPI-U column. Group B rows use the CPI-W column. Source: Bureau of Labor Statistics, Relative importance of components in the Consumer Price Indexes, U.S. city average, December 2025, 2024 weights.
BLS publishes a research index for Americans 62 and older, the R-CPI-E. It is an experimental series. Congress has not adopted it for any benefit. TrueCOLA uses only official indexes, so it is not used.
The Consumer Price Index basket, priced in dollars, subtracted from take-home pay.
Same categories as the CPI: housing, food, transportation, medical care and everything else a household buys.
Government dollars: Census and Social Security Administration figures for income; the Consumer Expenditure Survey for food, gasoline, utilities, clothing and the rest; Medicare and the Marketplace for coverage; Census owner-cost data for homeowners.
One labeled market line: Zillow asking rent, because no federal agency publishes monthly rent in dollars at this level of detail.
Seven household types. Four housing paths. All 50 states. All 435 congressional districts. More than 26,000 ZIP codes.
Published the business day after each CPI release.
The result is the monthly margin: what is left after the required bills are paid.
The Consumer Price Index is the official measure of price change, and TrueCOLA uses it as published. We do not recompute the percent, argue it should be higher or lower, or offer a substitute index.
The CPI is built on a basket of real goods and services, priced in dollars every month and weighted by what real households report spending. The government publishes the percent. It has never published the basket in dollars, against income, for the places people live. That is the report TrueCOLA publishes.
The categories are the CPI's. The dollars are the government's, with one labeled Zillow line for rent. The arithmetic is net income minus required costs.
We hold one position: official cost-of-living measurement must reflect what households actually pay.
The government tells you the national rate. The TrueCOLA Project Margin Report publishes the margin where you live. The margin is net income minus required costs. The margin is not an inflation rate and does not replace the CPI.
What the government measures
August 2026 CPI-U: 3.4%
The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers is the official BLS scoreboard for urban price change. It is a weighted average of a fixed basket. It answers how fast prices moved, not what a household has left.
Official rate published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. This column shows the official 12-month CPI-U percent, not a rate invented here.
What a household like this has left
Two adults · national · renter · August 2026 · -$1,964
TrueCOLA publishes the margin: net income minus required costs. The published figure uses the unit people already use: dollars.
Published TrueCOLA figure from this month’s national table. District pages run the same arithmetic where you live.
Official inflation coverage almost always leads with the CPI-U rate: up 2%, up 3%, cooling, heating. That is the right language for markets and statistical agencies. It is a hard language for a family deciding whether this month’s paycheck covers the same roof, care, and basics as last year.
Large shares of U.S. adults struggle with complex documents and quantitative text. When the national story is a weighted-average percent, many people never get a clear answer to “so what does that mean for a household like mine?”
TrueCOLA exists for that gap. We do not replace the CPI-U. We sit beside it and answer a different question, in the unit people already use: dollars.
CPI-U language
TrueCOLA language
You do not have to become an inflation specialist. Hold one sentence: the CPI-U is the official national rate, and the TrueCOLA Project Margin Report does the subtraction where you live: net income minus required costs.
01
The CPI-U is the official speedometer: how fast urban prices changed, spoken as a weighted average percent. The TrueCOLA Project Margin Report publishes the margin, net income minus required costs, for a defined household type. One is a rate. The other is not a person's bank balance. The margin is not an inflation rate and does not replace the CPI.
02
CPI-U represents consumption for most of the urban United States in one average. TrueCOLA runs the same household arithmetic for every state and all 435 congressional districts. A ZIP code finds your district. It does not invent a neighborhood-only number.
03
People notice items they buy often, such as groceries and gasoline. CPI-U weights a whole basket, so a "cooling" headline can sit next to bills that still feel high. TrueCOLA does not rebuild those weights. It subtracts required dollar costs from net income so the official rate sits beside a household margin.
Look up your place in this month’s report or browse this month’s district pages.
Figures below are national TrueCOLA results for August 2026, renter track where shown. The margin is net income minus required costs. The margin is not an inflation rate and does not replace the CPI. It is not a leftover bank balance.
Two adults · national · renter margin
-$1,964
Monthly dollars left after required costs in the published two-adult national path for August 2026.
Median household · national · renter margin
-$959
The same idea for the median household group: one number a reader can compare to a paycheck, not only to a rate.
| Household type | Index | Renter margin |
|---|---|---|
| One adult | CPI-U | -$2,475 |
| Two adults | CPI-U | -$1,964 |
| Median household | CPI-U | -$959 |
| Senior 65+ | CPI-U | -$529 |
| Senior couple 65+ | CPI-U | -$474 |
| Social Security | CPI-W | -$2,936 |
| Two Social Security | CPI-W | -$3,842 |
Source: TrueCOLA August 2026 national table. Full district detail is free at this month’s district pages and the monthly report.
The United States has excellent official price and income statistics. What remains rare in public form is a single, free, monthly product that turns those sources into a household margin in dollars, for multiple household types, with permanent pages for every congressional district.
That is the niche TrueCOLA fills. We are not a political campaign. We do not tell anyone how to vote. We publish the arithmetic in public so more people can participate in cost-of-living conversations without needing to be inflation specialists first.
The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) is the official BLS measure of how prices in a fixed urban basket change over time. It is a national weighted average, usually reported as a percent, such as “prices rose 3%.” It is a scoreboard for price change. It does not cause prices to move.
A percentage answers how prices changed, not how many dollars are left after rent, healthcare, taxes, and other required costs. Paychecks and bills arrive in dollars. Many readers can follow a monthly shortfall or surplus more easily than an abstract rate.
No. It is the Consumer Price Index basket, priced in dollars and set against income. It does not replace the index. It shows what the index weighs, in the unit bills arrive in. The margin is net income minus required costs. The margin is not an inflation rate and does not replace the CPI.
TrueCOLA publishes a monthly dollar margin for seven household types, with renter and homeowner tracks, for every U.S. state and all 435 congressional districts. The goal is to make the cost of living legible in the same unit people use at the kitchen table: dollars.
Published figures are built from documented federal sources and, for current rent detail, a clearly labeled Zillow rent source. The website displays the published file; it does not invent or recalculate the engine’s results. Methodology and corrections are public.
The Monthly Margin Report publishes the next business day after the Bureau of Labor Statistics releases the Consumer Price Index. A Friday CPI release means a Monday report. A release on the day before a federal holiday means the report publishes the next business day after the holiday. CPI release dates come from the official BLS schedule. This site does not invent those dates.
Anyone who hears “inflation was X percent” and still cannot tell whether a household like theirs is ahead or behind this month: residents, journalists, educators, researchers, and policymakers who want a dollar view alongside the official index.
If you report, teach, research, or simply share numbers with neighbors, use the free district pages and the monthly report. Attribute TrueCOLA Project (truecola.org). Pair the official CPI-U release with a plainly labeled household margin so readers see both the rate and the dollars.