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| Wednesday, July 19, 2006 |
| Consumer Price Index: How they get that data |
Today's Christian Science Monitor has a great article: Backstory: Mrs. Murphy, inflation detective. The reporter follows Beth Murphy for a day while she performs her job as a price-checker/reporter for the U.S. Department of Labor. The data she provides (and data from 400 others just like her) is compiled and becomes the Consumer Price Index. The result is one of the most closely watched indicators of the economy's health - the consumer price index, or CPI. Everything from the direction of interest rates to the annual adjustment of Social Security benefits is pegged to it. July's CPI is set for release Wednesday morning at 8:30 and will help the Federal Reserve decide whether to raise short-term interest rates in a battle against inflation |
| posted by Boston Gal @ 8:30 AM *
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| 2 Comments: |
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Sounds like a cool job; too bad it's only 20-22 hrs a week with $14-22/hr pay, and only ~400 positions nationwide. It would be interesting to see if prices for several products at different Targets and Walmarts and bordering states would differ. I wonder what the DOL guidelines are for weekly sale items (that happen to be for the item she checks), or if there is a manufacture coupon available.
Do you think she is 1 of the 100's of people who fled MA for NH's affordable houses?
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This is so stupid. In a world of modern technology where databases are kept that know what the last movie you rented at blockbuster, whom you called on your cell phone, what items were purchased with your credit card, etc. The DoL can't come up with a way to download this data from the internet or from the stores themselves? Hell, even Wal-mart has databases of the price of all the items they sell and even the ones they don't. This may have been a great system in 1940 but it's way outdated today which probably explains why the inflation number is always under reported.
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Sounds like a cool job; too bad it's only 20-22 hrs a week with $14-22/hr pay, and only ~400 positions nationwide. It would be interesting to see if prices for several products at different Targets and Walmarts and bordering states would differ. I wonder what the DOL guidelines are for weekly sale items (that happen to be for the item she checks), or if there is a manufacture coupon available.
Do you think she is 1 of the 100's of people who fled MA for NH's affordable houses?