US inflation today: 3.20% year-over-year (Nowflation Realtime, measured as of 2026-10-17 from live market prices where they exist — a measurement, not a forecast), versus the official BLS CPI of 3.7% (September 2026 print). Nowflation Realtime runs below official CPI by 0.50pp: 3.20% against 3.7% for September 2026. Held at the official September 2026 subindexes with no live price, the same construction reads 3.52%, 0.18pp below CPI; that difference is construction, not market prices. Live market prices move it 0.32pp down from there: new-lease rents −0.65pp and pump prices +0.31pp, with smaller effects from the rest. The Nowflation CPI Gauge, which estimates what CPI would read with its inputs refreshed today, reads 3.46%, a gap of −0.24pp to the print. The CPI Gauge's 3-month annualized pace (seasonally adjusted) is 4.04%; its 1-month pace, a single month compounded twelve times, is 1.52% (the month's own change was 0.13% (Sep 17 to Oct 17): live prices −0.02pp net, with Shelter: Rent the largest part (+0.06pp); the held components' step to the September CPI prints on Oct 14 +0.15pp) — the change in prices over those windows, net of last year's base. What CPI will print: the Nowflation Forecast for the October 2026 CPI (released November 10, 2026 at 8:30 AM ET) is 3.9% (3.86% unrounded), the current forecast (it is locked the evening before the release and graded after the print); the in-house model alone reads 3.98%. Cumulatively, prices are up 36.7% since January 2018, our base period.
Today's read: Nowflation Realtime reads 3.20% YoY, up 0.019pp on the day as shelter: owners' equivalent rent adds 0.03pp. What moved Nowflation Realtime since 2026-10-16: shelter: owners' equivalent rent +0.03pp (new input for 2026-09-30), motor fuel -0.02pp (new input for 2026-10-17), shelter: rent +0.009pp (new input for 2026-09-30). Nowflation Realtime reads 3.20% YoY; the Nowflation CPI Gauge reads 3.46%. Largest Nowflation CPI Gauge driver: Motor Fuel (-0.44% DoD, -1.27bps to the CPI Gauge). The CPI Gauge runs 0.24pp below the last official print (3.7%). The Nowflation Forecast for the October 2026 CPI is 3.9% (3.86% unrounded); the in-house model alone reads 3.977%. Pump price $4.308, New York Harbor spot gasoline (EIA) implies -37.8c over two weeks.
Last graded call: the September 2026 CPI. Nowflation Forecast 3.56%, actual 3.7%, miss −0.14pp (pre-registered before the print). Live calls graded: 3 since June 2026, mean absolute error 0.21pp. The scoreboard.
| Index | Nowflation YoY | Official YoY | Gap |
|---|---|---|---|
| US CPI (Nowflation CPI Gauge, measured 2026-10-17) | 3.46% | 3.7% (2026-09) | -0.24pp (gauge reading on 2026-10-17 minus the latest official print (2026-09)) |
| Core CPI (Nowflation Model (in-house) forecast for the 2026-10 print) | 2.76% | 2.6% (2026-09, latest print, reference only) | no gap: no official value for that print yet |
| Supercore (svcs ex-shelter) (Nowflation CPI Gauge, measured 2026-10-17) | 2.4% | — | — |
| PCE (PCE-weighted gauge) (Nowflation CPI Gauge, measured 2026-10-17) | 3.44% | 3.42% (2026-08) | +0.02pp (gauge reading on 2026-10-17 minus the latest official print (2026-08)) |
| Core PCE (the Fed's trend measure) (Nowflation Model (in-house) forecast for the 2026-09 print) | 3.04% | 3.01% (2026-08, latest print, reference only) | no gap: no official value for that print yet |
| Component | Our YoY | BLS YoY | CPI weight |
|---|---|---|---|
| Shelter: Rent | 2.0% | 2.8% | 7.8% |
| Shelter: Owned (priced on the all-tenant rent index; BLS column: official owners’ equivalent rent) | 2.0% | 3.3% | 26.2% |
| Motor Fuel | 39.5% | 34.2% | 2.9% |
| Used Vehicles | 0.4% | -1.5% | 2.8% |
| New Vehicles | 0.6% | 0.6% | 3.8% |
| Food at Home | 2.1% | 1.8% | 8.3% |
| Food Away | 3.4% | 3.5% | 5.4% |
| Electricity | 3.8% | 4.4% | 2.5% |
| Utility Gas | 4.4% | 5.0% | 0.8% |
| Medical Care | 1.6% | 1.5% | 8.4% |
| Apparel | 3.6% | 3.4% | 2.4% |
| Recreation | 2.7% | 2.8% | 5.1% |
| Education & Comm | 2.1% | 2.3% | 5.9% |
| Transportation Services | 2.5% | 2.8% | 6.3% |
| Lodging Away | 3.2% | 4.4% | 1.3% |
| Household Furnishings | 2.0% | 1.6% | 4.3% |
| Water, Sewer & Trash | 4.8% | 4.8% | 1.1% |
| Alcohol | 1.6% | 1.4% | 0.8% |
| Personal Care | 3.8% | 3.7% | 2.5% |
| Tobacco | 6.3% | 6.4% | 0.4% |
| Residual (core proxy) | 2.4% | 2.6% | 0.9% |
Nowflation Realtime measures the prices being set in the US economy today: live market prices where a credible source exists (Zillow ZORI (all homes, SA) and Apartment List national rent (new leases) for shelter, AAA pump prices, Manheim used-vehicle values and Kelley Blue Book new-vehicle prices), and the latest official BLS subindex, labeled as held, for every other component, across the 21 CPI components weighted to the CPI basket. It is not tuned to match CPI or any other index. The Nowflation CPI Gauge keeps CPI's own construction, including the slow roll-over of existing leases, and estimates what official CPI would read with its inputs refreshed today; it feeds the forecast. Behind both sits an open directory of 1,684 public series from 26 sources (BLS, BEA, EIA, USDA, Treasury, FRED and the market feeds above); the public-data series download as CSV and JSON. Live readings from 2026-09-15 are stored as published and never rewritten. Method v2.2 since 2026-09-28 (v2.0 before; readings published under v2.0 are unchanged). Values before 2026-09-15 are a reconstruction under method v2.0. Nowflation CPI Gauge: method v1.5 since September 28, 2026, v1.4 before that (the archive was recomputed once under v1.4, on September 8). Readings are kept as published, as logged on /corrections. They have not changed since. Our CPI Nowflation Forecast is graded publicly after every print alongside the Cleveland Fed, Street consensus, and Kalshi prediction markets. Rents: Data Provided by Zillow Group; Apartment List, Apartment List National Rent Report. Updated every morning before the US market open; this snapshot published October 17, 2026 at 8:05 AM ET.
Related: Why inflation moved today · The CPI forecast · Why the gap · My inflation · The scoreboard