LETTER: Inflation is worse than reported

In his April 16 letter, John Severson laments the compounding effect of inflation and the growth of consumer price index exceeding after-tax income growth. It’s worse than he thinks.

The CPI is not accurately reported. This is because shrinkflation, the art of reducing the contents within a package without reducing its price, has not been factored into the CPI as a price increase under President Joe Biden, owing to the alleged difficulty in gathering statistics. So even if the reported CPI increase were to be correctly determined for the current fiscal year, the base against which it would be applied would be substantially understated thanks to three years of understating previous CPI hikes. And unless corrected in the base amount, those errors will compound in perpetuity.

Those living on Social Security or federal retirement checks are most vulnerable because the CPI is the basis for their income increases.