What area indexes are published and how often?
Besides monthly publication of the national (or U.S. City Average) CPI-U, C-CPI-U, and CPI-W, indexes are published by area for the CPI-U and CPI-W. For the C-CPI-U, data for all items and 27 components are available at the national level only; for the CPI-U and CPI-W, 377 component series are published at the national level. Monthly CPI-U and CPI-W indexes are published for the four census regions: Northeast, Midwest (formerly North Central), South, and West. Monthly indexes also are published for urban areas classified by population size: all metropolitan areas over 1.5 million, metropolitan areas smaller than 1.5 million, and all nonmetropolitan urban areas. Indexes are available as well within each region, cross-classified by area population size. For the Northeast and West, however, indexes for nonmetropolitan areas are not available. BLS also publishes indexes for 27 local areas. These indexes are byproducts of the national CPI program.
