US inflation today: 3.20% year-over-year (Nowflation Realtime, measured as of October 17, 2026; +0.019pp on the day, +0.05pp on the week). 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 reads 3.46%. 39.7% of the basket is priced live today, with an average input age of 16.5 days, against 177 days for the Nowflation CPI Gauge.
Nowflation Realtime measures the prices being set in the US economy today. Where a live market price exists we use it. That means pump prices, vehicle auction and transaction prices, and rents on leases signed this month. Where no credible live source exists we hold the latest official reading and label it as held.
We don't tune this number to match CPI or any other index. CPI runs on inputs that are weeks to years old, so the gap between Realtime and CPI is the point of the series.
We judge Realtime on how much of the basket is live and how old its inputs are. We also check whether official CPI moves toward it over the following 5 to 12 months.
The CPI Gauge estimates what official CPI would read if its inputs were refreshed today. It keeps CPI's construction, including the slow way shelter moves as old leases roll over. It's the bridge between Realtime and the print, and it feeds our CPI forecast.
Each of the 21 CPI components uses a live market price where a credible source exists and holds the latest official BLS subindex otherwise, labeled as held. A live source counts as stale after twice its publishing cadence, and the component then holds the official reading. A monthly source also steps aside, without being stale, once the BLS has published a newer month: the component holds that newer official print until the source catches up. Monthly sources enter as their own year-over-year change for their latest reference month; pump prices compare the same calendar day a year earlier. Shelter in the published number: rent and owners' equivalent rent both from Zillow ZORI (all homes, SA) and Apartment List national rent (new leases). No public renewal-rent series with monthly cadence and usable terms exists, so Realtime shelter is new-lease only. Method v2.2; full methodology, and the Nowflation CPI Gauge for what CPI would read.
| Component | Weight | Nowflation Realtime YoY | Nowflation CPI Gauge (v1.5) YoY | Status | Source | Input age (days) |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Shelter: Rent | 7.84% | 1.22% | 1.97% | live | Zillow ZORI (all homes, SA) + Apartment List national rent (new leases) | 17 |
| Shelter: Owners' equivalent rent | 26.2% | 1.22% | 1.97% | live | Zillow ZORI (all homes, SA) + Apartment List national rent (new leases) | 17 |
| Motor fuel | 2.9% | 40.48% | 40.48% | live | AAA national average regular: the year-ago level (October 17, 2025) is EIA weekly retail regular gasoline for the week of October 13, 2025, chain-linked to AAA national average regular, whose history here begins July 2, 2026; the comparison is AAA national average regular on both sides from July 2, 2027 | 0 |
| Used vehicles | 2.76% | -0.53% | -0.53% | live | Manheim Used Vehicle Value Index | 17 |
| New vehicles | 3.84% | 0.61% | 0.61% | held | BLS CUSR0000SETA01 (held): every live source is past its freshness window (twice its publishing cadence), so the official subindex is held until a fresh observation arrives | 17 |
| Food at home | 8.32% | 1.77% | 1.77% | held | BLS CUSR0000SAF11 (held) | 17 |
| Food away from home | 5.37% | 3.46% | 3.46% | held | BLS CUSR0000SEFV (held) | 17 |
| Electricity | 2.49% | 4.37% | 4.37% | held | BLS CUSR0000SEHF01 (held) | 17 |
| Utility gas | 0.77% | 4.97% | 4.97% | held | BLS CUSR0000SEHF02 (held) | 17 |
| Medical care | 8.42% | 1.50% | 1.50% | held | BLS CPIMEDSL (held) | 17 |
| Apparel | 2.37% | 3.37% | 3.37% | held | BLS CPIAPPSL (held) | 17 |
| Recreation | 5.14% | 2.82% | 2.82% | held | BLS CPIRECSL (held) | 17 |
| Education and communication | 5.85% | 2.32% | 2.32% | held | BLS CPIEDUSL (held) | 17 |
| Transportation services | 6.31% | 2.77% | 2.77% | held | BLS CUSR0000SAS4 (held) | 17 |
| Lodging away from home | 1.29% | 4.38% | 4.38% | held | BLS CUSR0000SEHB (held) | 17 |
| Household furnishings and operations | 4.3% | 1.56% | 1.56% | held | BLS CUSR0000SAH3 (held) | 17 |
| Water, sewer and trash | 1.14% | 4.84% | 4.84% | held | BLS CUSR0000SEHG (held) | 17 |
| Alcoholic beverages | 0.84% | 1.42% | 1.42% | held | BLS CUSR0000SAF116 (held) | 17 |
| Personal care | 2.46% | 3.72% | 3.72% | held | BLS CUSR0000SAG1 (held) | 17 |
| Tobacco | 0.45% | 6.43% | 6.43% | held | BLS CUSR0000SEGA (held) | 17 |
| Other (residual, core CPI proxy) | 0.94% | 2.57% | 2.57% | held | BLS CPILFESL (held) | 17 |
Latest data in the rent blend: Zillow ZORI, all homes (smoothed, seasonally adjusted), September 2026; Apartment List national rent estimate, September 2026.
Market rents rose earlier and faster than CPI shelter. In the reconstruction, new-lease rents peaked at 16.5% year over year in February 2022, 13 months before CPI shelter peaked at 8.2% in March 2023. That puts reconstructed Nowflation Realtime at 12% at its June 2022 peak, when official CPI read 9.1% and the Nowflation CPI Gauge 9.6%. Rents also cooled first: reconstructed Nowflation Realtime fell to 1% in July 2023 while official CPI ran at 3.2%. These are reconstructed values under method v2.0, not live readings.
Realtime clears CPI's own persistence: r 0.32 vs 0.23 at 12 months ahead, since 2019 (80 months)
| Window | From | Best horizon, 5 to 12 months ahead | Nowflation Realtime correlation | CPI persistence correlation | Difference |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| since January 2019 | 2019-01 | 12 | 0.318 | 0.231 | 0.087 |
| since July 2023 | 2023-07 | 12 | 0.041 | -0.664 | 0.704 |
Overall: pass (the rule: since-2019 window: at some k in 5..12, r(Realtime) − r(persistence) ≥ 0.03; the shorter windows are shown for context and are not part of it). The full lead test.
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.
Both shelter lines, Shelter: Rent and Shelter: Owned, use an equal blend of Zillow ZORI (all homes) and Apartment List. Apartment List measures transacted new-lease rents, which net out concessions that Zillow's asking rents do not (39.2% of Zillow rental listings offered a concession in August 2026, per Zillow), and pricing all of shelter on one index matches how the CPI Gauge prices shelter. Apartment List publishes no single-family series, so the owners' weight uses a blend that leans toward apartment rents. Zillow single-family is tracked in shadow for comparison. Apartment List publishes its Rent Estimates for public use. If that changes, Realtime moves to Zillow all-homes on both shelter lines as a logged method change.
Rents: Data Provided by Zillow Group; Apartment List, Apartment List National Rent Report.