I haven't dug in recently to the CPI, but I wouldn't be surprised to find underlying flaws in the CPI's representation of different groups of people such as people who live in urban areas, people who are in a specific income bracket, etc. The CPI may reflect those things, but if those proportions are off it can significantly affect the inflation number it spits out.
I'm not an economic expert but it baffles me that people pay attention to a single CPI and don't look at many at once when analyzing economic policy. A single CPI optimization is inherently going to cater towards the effects on one group, but without study we don't even know what that group is.
I'm not an economic expert but it baffles me that people pay attention to a single CPI and don't look at many at once when analyzing economic policy. A single CPI optimization is inherently going to cater towards the effects on one group, but without study we don't even know what that group is.