It also had a new formula for the consumer price index -- called chained CPI -- that wraps in new assumptions on consumer habits in response to rising prices, such as seeking cheaper alternatives, and would result in smaller benefit increases.

CNN: SHARE THIS

For example, the chart below shows how the food and non-food consumer price index (CPI) have declined on a year-over-year basis over the past several months.

FORBES: Chinese Monetary Discipline Sows Seeds Of New Growth

Graciela Bevacqua, the professional statistician responsible for the consumer-price index (CPI) until Mr Moreno forced her out, says that he tried to get her to omit decimal points, not round them.

ECONOMIST: Argentina��s inflation problem

Every six months your bonds are credited with the fixed rate plus the rate of inflation as determined by the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U).

FORBES: Fact and Comment

The earnings rate combines a 0.00% fixed rate of return with the 4.60% annualized rate of inflation as measured by the Consumer Price Index for all Urban Consumers (CPI-U).

FORBES: Treasury Confirms May 2011 Series I Savings Bond Rate

The three-month annualized increase in the Consumer Price Index (CPI) has gone from 2.9% in September, to 3.3% in December, to 6.1% in March.

FORBES: An "All-In" Bet By Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke

The increase for a coming year is based on inflation between the third quarter of the prior year and the third quarter of the current year, as measured by the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W. In the third quarter of 2008 energy prices and the CPI-W spiked, giving beneficiaries a hefty 5.8 % COLA for 2009.

FORBES: Social Security: No COLA, No Payroll Tax Increase In 2011

President Obama has proposed replacing the regular consumer price index, or CPI, to adjust Social Security benefits with the chained CPI -- often called the cat food CPI because the index assumes that when the price of human food rises, seniors can substitute cheaper food to get the same nutrition.

CNN: Keep seniors' national park fees low

The Consumer Price Index rose 11% in 1974 and the same in 1979--a long way from the CPI increase of 4.1% in 2007.

FORBES: Magazine Article