Methodology
Version 1The Basket Index is the total cost of a fixed basket of 24 staple grocery items at their actual U.S. average shelf price, reported monthly. Every number traces to a named U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics series. Nothing is estimated, interpolated, or smoothed.
The index
For a given area and month, the basket value is the sum over items of quantity × price:
basket(area, month) = Σ (quantityi × pricei)
Quantities are fixed across time and areas, so a change in the index reflects price movement, not a change in what's in the basket (a Laspeyres-style fixed-weight index). Quantities are set once and never changed silently — any change is a versioned event on the corrections page. The latest national value is $111.46 (May 2026).
Missing values
If BLS reports no price for an item in a given month, the value is null — we never fill the gap. The basket is computed on the items actually priced, and the count is disclosed. Month-over-month and year-over-year changes are like-for-like: computed only over items priced in both months compared.
Real vs. nominal
Every series ships both nominal (the dollar price as reported) and real (CPI-deflated to the latest month's dollars, using CPI-U all-items). The real series strips out general inflation so you can see whether an item got more expensive relative to everything else.
Geography: national + regions
BLS publishes grocery average prices for the U.S. and the four census regions (Northeast, Midwest, South, West) — not individual metros. To compare regions fairly (each reports a different subset of items), we rank them on a comparable 11-item basket of staples priced across all four regions, each at its latest available price: Bread, Ground beef, Chicken, Chicken breast, Bacon, Ham, Potatoes, Bananas, Oranges, Lemons, Potato chips.
The basket — every item and series
| Item | Qty | Unit | BLS series |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bacon, sliced | 1 | lb | APU0000704111 |
| Bananas | 3 | lb | APU0000711211 |
| Bread, white, pan | 2 | lb | APU0000702111 |
| Butter, salted, grade AA | 1 | lb | APU0000FS1101 |
| Cheddar cheese, natural | 1 | lb | APU0000710212 |
| Chicken breast, boneless | 1 | lb | APU0000FF1101 |
| Chicken, fresh, whole | 2 | lb | APU0000706111 |
| Coffee, 100%, ground roast | 1 | lb | APU0000717311 |
| Eggs, grade A, large | 2 | doz | APU0000708111 |
| Flour, white, all purpose | 2 | lb | APU0000701111 |
| Ground beef, 100% beef | 2 | lb | APU0000703112 |
| Ham, boneless, excluding canned | 1 | lb | APU0000704312 |
| Lemons | 2 | lb | APU0000711412 |
| Lettuce, iceberg | 1 | lb | APU0000712211 |
| Milk, whole, fortified | 2 | gal | APU0000709112 |
| Orange juice, frozen concentrate | 1 | 16oz | APU0000713111 |
| Oranges, navel | 2 | lb | APU0000711311 |
| Pork chops, center cut, bone-in | 1 | lb | APU0000704211 |
| Potato chips | 1 | 16oz | APU0000718311 |
| Potatoes, white | 3 | lb | APU0000712112 |
| Rice, white, long grain, uncooked | 2 | lb | APU0000701312 |
| Spaghetti & macaroni | 1 | lb | APU0000701322 |
| Sugar, white, all sizes | 2 | lb | APU0000715211 |
| Tomatoes, field grown | 2 | lb | APU0000712311 |
Source & freshness
Data is the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, CPI Average Price Data, retrieved via the BLS Public Data API. The visible "data through" date equals the latest observation in the data, asserted at build — if the pipeline doesn't advance, the build fails rather than ship a stale page. Latest data: May 2026, retrieved June 21, 2026.
BLS.gov cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from BLS.gov.
BLS data is a work of the U.S. government and in the public domain. Our charts and downloads are free to cite and embed — see any data page for CSV/JSON and embed code. Changes to this methodology are logged on corrections.