[em500]

You don't recall correctly. All the standard inflation numbers in the newspapers, economics papers, COL adjustments etc. include gas prices (as well as food prices). You're probably confused with "core inflation", which excludes food and energy prices, or some other special purpose measure. The Bureau of Labor Statistics which computes the official US inflation numbers publishes several of those. Core inflation in the US is pretty much only used by the Federal Reserve, as a crude form of smoothing rapid fluctuations (alternatives could be using trimmed means, or rolling averages).

Krugman explains it all fairly accessibly: https://archive.nytimes.com/krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/0...