by Calculated Risk on 5/13/2011 01:31:00 PM

Earlier today the BLS reported:

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.4 percent in April on a seasonally adjusted basis, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all items index increased 3.2 percent before seasonal adjustment.
...
The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.2 percent in April after increasing 0.1 percent in March. The shelter index, and its rent and owners' equivalent rent components, all repeated their March increases of 0.1 percent.

The Cleveland Fed released the median CPI and the trimmed-mean CPI this morning:

According to the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, the median Consumer Price Index rose 0.2% (2.8% annualized rate) in April. The 16% trimmed-mean Consumer Price Index increased 0.3% (3.3% annualized rate) during the month.

Over the last 12 months, core CPI has increased 1.3%, median CPI has increased 1.4%, and trimmed-mean CPI increased 1.7%.

Note: The Cleveland Fed has a discussion of a number of measures of inflation: Measuring Inflation

Click on graph for larger image in graph gallery.

This graph shows these three measure of inflation on a year-over-year basis.

These measures all show that year-over-year inflation is still low, but increasing lately.

Note: You can see the median CPI details for April here.

Although the year-over-year increases are below the Fed's inflation target, the annualized rates were above the target in April. Core CPI increased at an annualized rate of 2.2%, median CPI 2.8% annualized, and trimmed-mean CPI increased 3.3% annualized.

However, with the slack in the system, I expect the year-over-year core measures to stay below 2% this year.