When is the next PCE inflation report?

What it measures

This release carries the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, which is the inflation measure the Federal Reserve actually targets. Its 2% goal is stated in PCE terms, not CPI terms. The same release reports how much households earned and how much they spent, which is why it is titled for the income rather than for the price index buried inside it.

What it does not say

PCE is not a second opinion on CPI. It is built differently: a broader scope, weights that update as people substitute between goods, and the inclusion of spending made on households' behalf, chiefly employer-paid and government-paid healthcare. It usually runs a few tenths below CPI for structural reasons rather than because one of them is wrong. When a commentator says inflation hit the Fed's target, the number that sentence requires is this one.

Commonly confused: PCE and CPI

PCE is the Fed's target measure and CPI is the one most people have heard of. They are built from different scopes and different weights, and PCE includes healthcare paid on households' behalf by employers and government, which CPI largely does not. The gap between them is structural rather than an error in either.

Where to look first when it lands

• Core PCE year-over-year, the single figure the Fed is steering by.
• The saving rate, which shows whether spending is funded by income or by drawdown.
• Real spending rather than nominal — spending can rise while volumes fall.

No forecast, on purpose

There is no consensus figure on this page. Consensus is a licensed product — a survey of economists, compiled and sold by a data vendor — and we do not license it. A date with no forecast beside it is a fact. A date with an invented forecast beside it is a fabrication with a decimal point on it.