Summary of August CPI, September 11, 2026
- Consumer prices rose 0.4 percent, matching forecasts, as gasoline rose 3.9; the 12-month rate held at 3.4.
- Core prices rose 0.3 percent against a 0.2 forecast; their 12-month rate fell to 2.4, the lowest since March 2021.
- Owners’ equivalent rent rose 0.19 percent; its three-month pace slowed to 2.8 percent from 3.2.
Cellphone plans rose a record 5.9 percent under BLS’s new method
Wireless telephone service, 1.3 percent of the basket, rose the most since the index began in 1997 and added 0.077 of core’s 0.23 points; without it, core rose about 0.20 percent, the forecast. BLS’s 0.01-point standard error makes the rise a measured price change, not sampling noise.
Shelter supplied 0.09 of core’s points, airline fares and tuition 0.05 — tuition and childcare rose 0.8 percent, the most since August 2011 — and medical care and car insurance subtracted 0.04. Set aside those two declines with cellphone plans and core rose about 0.28.
What moved cellphone prices is not in the release. Since July 2025, BLS has priced the category from a vendor’s file of plans advertised to new and upgrading customers, net of promotions and adjusted for features, so an ended discount counts as a rise. Moves above 2 percent have come in four of the 14 months since, against four in the 126 before; June’s was −3.3.
AT&T’s August increase, on retired plans opened between July and November 2025, falls on plans no longer sold, which the method does not price.
Owners’ rent slowed; hotel rates lifted shelter to 0.26 percent
July’s note found rents had not slowed since January, with owners’ equivalent rent’s three-month pace equal to its 12-month rate at 3.2 percent. With May’s 0.30 out of the window, the three-month pace is now below the annual rate of 3.1. A second month under 0.2 on October 14 would end that finding.
Rents supplied two-thirds of shelter’s rise. Lodging away from home, mostly hotel rates, rose 2.4 percent after falling 2.8 in July, lifting shelter to 0.26 from about 0.18 — a move too small, against a 1.6-point standard error, to separate from sampling noise.
Airline fares rose 2.7 percent as producer fares rose 4.2
Fares, the line through which fuel costs reach core, rose the most since May as jet fuel rose 21.3 percent and producer fares 4.2. The link is loose: in July consumer fares rose 2.2 percent while jet fuel fell 8.9.
Waller named conditions for holding and hiking; both have evidence
Fed Governor Christopher Waller said on September 3 he was willing to support holding with “continued progress toward our 2 percent goal,” and “if inflation comes in hot, I would consider a rate hike.” Core’s three-month pace is 2.0 percent annualized.
Its monthly rises since June, 0.0, 0.2 and 0.3, went up each month, and “it may not take much acceleration in inflation to nudge me,” Waller said. He dislikes “throwing out specific categories” other than imputed prices; cellphone plans are measured. The Fed decides September 16, two weeks before August’s PCE, the gauge it targets.
Sources: BLS Consumer Price Index — August 2026 (USDL-26-1496), including Table 1 (categories with relative-importance weights), Table 2 (seasonally adjusted detail, including wireless telephone services), Table 3 (special aggregates), and Tables 6 and 7 (the 1- and 12-month analysis tables carrying BLS’s official effect-on-all-items column, standard errors, and largest/smallest-since flags). Index history and every unrounded, three-month and 12-month rate computed from BLS’s time-series files as of September 11, 2026 — cu.data.2.Summaries, cu.data.12.USHousing, cu.data.14.USTransportation, cu.data.15.USMedical and cu.data.17.USEducationAndCommunication — series CUSR0000SA0, SA0L1E, SAH1, SEHC, SEHA, SEHB, SETG01, SAM2, SETE and CUUR0000SA0L1E, SEHC, SEED03 (wireless; index begins December 1997); the extract used is archived with this piece. Wireless method: BLS, Use of alternative data and methods in the CPI for wireless telephone services. AT&T’s August change: AT&T, Learn About Changes to Your AT&T Unlimited Plan (updated June 22, 2026; $10 a month for single-line and $20 for multi-line retired unlimited plans activated July 24 to November 1, 2025). Producer fares and jet fuel, including July’s restated jet fuel: BLS Producer Price Indexes — August 2026 (USDL 26-1495). Consensus: CNBC, September 11 (Dow Jones). Waller: Federal Reserve, September 3 speech; his remark on specific categories concerns PCE. Companion: the GeoMean July CPI note. Verified figures, flat files, the wireless history test, source captures and the chart spec are archived with this piece. Monthly figures are seasonally adjusted except wireless telephone service, which BLS publishes unadjusted only; 12-month figures are not seasonally adjusted. Note: October 2025 CPI was not collected for most items (federal shutdown); no seasonally adjusted one-month rate spans that month.