Inflation -- Applications

1. At the Bureau of Labor Statistics, www.bls.gov, you can find the CPI for the most recent month and the same month last year.

2. The US Bureau of Statistics updates the CPI and the PPI every month. For the latest information data visit the bureau at stats.bls.gov/cpi. Click on "ppi-home" for an explanation of how the PPI and the CPI differ.

3. The cost of living varies between different areas of the country. If you earned $1000,000 per year in Springfield, Illinois, and wanted to move to Washington DC, how much would you need in additional income for your cost of living to remain unchanged? To calculate this answer, log on to www2.homefair.com/calc/salcalc.html and use the salary calculator. What might explain the different costs, and how might they influence your decision to move there?

4. Most nations have different rates of inflation. Log on to www.imf.org/external/index.htm. Find the inflation rates for nations around the world in various tables for the most recent year. Who had the highest rate? The lowest? Which nations had inflation rates in excess of 100 per cent?