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AgentElman t1_ja9s7xe wrote

Reply to comment by marmorset in TIL that in the period of time since the introduction of the consumer price index, the highest inflation rate observed in the U.S. was 20.49% in 1917. by ringopendragon

The government does not claim that every item went up less than the rate of inflation. It claims that the average increase of everything is the rate of inflation.

The price of houses has gone down. Should the government be declaring that there is negative inflation?

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wyle_e2 t1_jabprfw wrote

Technically the government uses "rental equivalent" when calculating how much housing costs have gone up. During their surveys they as people how much they feel it would cost for them to rent their house. The massive spike in housing costs what never added into inflation numbers. I personally feel inflation has been understated because of this and other "adjustments" because the government has a vested interest in understating inflation.

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marmorset t1_jabm0az wrote

I'm a real estate agent, housing sales have slowed down, but prices have not dropped at all. They're not as high as the rate of inflation, but they're rising. Demand has dropped because mortgage interest rates have gone up, but supply is down since construction slowed/stopped during the pandemic and that's kept the cost up.

No, the government should not be declaring that housing prices are deflating because that's not at all true.

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