The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its inflation report
for February 2026 on March 11th.
Big News for our subscribers (at least we’re excited about it):
We are in the process of a massive update for the site. With all the news coming out of the Middle East, we’ve updated our Inflation-Adjusted Oil Price History Chart and Historical Oil Prices Tables. We’ve updated the Historical Steampunk calculator that calculates annual inflation all the way back to 1774, and it is just plain fun to use.
We’ve already updated the Cumulative Inflation Calculator and made the tables easier to navigate. They collapse, so it is easier to scroll past them and continue on with the article. They are also searchable, reversible, and easier to read. We’ve consolidated some pages, so there is less jumping around, and we are adding a table of contents to the page so you don’t need to scroll so much, just jump to the right section. We also got rid of a bunch of ads, so the pages aren’t so cluttered.
Check out our Current Inflation page or Annual Inflation. And let us know what you think! We’d love to get your feedback. ~ Tim McMahon, editor.
Our Historical Inflation page now includes this chart of the erosion of the value of the dollar and some surprising facts about inflation and deflation prior to 1913. I’ll bet you can’t guess how much inflation occurred in the 126 years between 1774 and 1900. Annual Average Inflation Chart since 1774.
The following chart shows what one Dollar from 1774 would be worth over the years. The background image is an actual $6 note from 1776. It was redeemable in either Gold or Silver (as long as this particular Philadelphia issuer didn’t go bankrupt first). As you can see, from the green shaded area at some points along the way, $1 was actually worth more than the original dollar. But from 1935 onward, it was downhill all the way.
Now, back to the Inflation News.
The BLS reported Annual Inflation at 2.4%, unchanged from last month. But when we look at it to 2 decimal places, we see it rose very slightly from 2.39% to 2.42%.
- CPI Index rose from 325.252 to 326.785
- Monthly Inflation for February 2026 was 0.47%, up from 0.44% in February 2025.
- Next release April 10th, 2026
Annual Inflation Table
| Jan | Feb | Mar | Apr | May | Jun | Jul | Aug | Sep | Oct | Nov | Dec | |
| 2026 | 2.39% | 2.41% | ||||||||||
| 2025 | 3.00% | 2.82% | 2.39% | 2.31% | 2.35% | 2.67% | 2.70% | 2.92% | 3.01% | NA | 2.74% | 2.68% |
| 2024 | 3.09% | 3.15% | 3.48% | 3.36% | 3.27% | 2.97% | 2.89% | 2.53% | 2.44% | 2.60% | 2.75% | 2.89% |
| 2023 | 6.41% | 6.04% | 4.98% | 4.93% | 4.05% | 2.97% | 3.18% | 3.67% | 3.70% | 3.24% | 3.14% | 3.35% |
BLS Commentary:
“The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 0.3 percent on a seasonally adjusted basis in February, after rising 0.2 percent in January, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Over the last 12 months, the all-items index increased 2.4 percent before seasonal adjustment…
The index for shelter rose 0.2 percent in February and was the largest factor in the all-items monthly increase. The food index increased 0.4 percent over the month as did the food at home index, while the food away from home index rose 0.3 percent. The index for energy also increased in February, rising 0.6 percent...
The all items index rose 2.4 percent for the 12 months ending February, the same increase as reported for the 12 months ending January.”
Factors Driving Current Inflation
- The War in the Middle East has closed the Straits of Hormuz, disrupting Oil flows.
- The FED has switched from a Tight Money policy to looser money.
- In addition to oil, many other commodities flow through the Straits, like Fertilizer.
Some commentators are suggesting massive increases in food prices are on the horizon due to either a shortage or just higher prices for fertilizer. Nitrogen fertilizer is the primary fertilizer for Corn (and the U.S. uses corn in almost everything, i.e., corn syrup, corn starch, corn oil, dextrose, maltodextrin, corn meal, corn flour, ethanol, animal feed, and High-fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). Fortunately, the primary source of Nitrogen fertilizer is Natural Gas. ~70–80% of the energy used to produce nitrogen fertilizers comes from natural gas, and the U.S. has abundant Natural Gas, but worldwide food shortages could drive up prices here as well.
One advantage of a corn shortage might be a more rapid reduction in the use of HFCS, as Robert Kennedy has recommended. HFCS proliferation is a major component of the U.S. obesity epidemic.
The key is the Haber–Bosch process (invented by Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch in the early 1900s). That process takes nitrogen from the air (N₂), combines it with hydrogen derived mostly from natural gas (CH₄), and produces ammonia (NH₃). Ammonia becomes fertilizers like urea and ammonium nitrate.
BLS Inflation Components:
Looking at “Table A” below, we can see that on an annual basis, energy commodities and gasoline are still down, but Energy Services and Utilities are up fairly significantly, with Natural Gas (called “Utility Piped Gas”) up the most. On a monthly basis, Fuel Oil is UP a massive 11.1% and Natural Gas is up 3.1%.
Oil Price History
- The black line shows the nominal price of crude oil.
- The red line shows the inflation-adjusted price.
- Horizontal lines represent the average “real” (inflation-adjusted) price for different time periods.
Monthly Average Domestic Crude Oil Prices
See: Historical Oil Prices Chart and Tables for more info.
February 2026 FED Summary:
At its January 2026 meeting, the FED held rates steady at the 3.5% to 3.75% range set in December, citing that the economy’s outlook “has clearly improved since the last meeting”. With the possibility of the War in Iran spiking Oil/Gas prices the FED may hold steady again at its March 17-18 meeting. Some commentators are predicting no changes during the April and June meetings either. This would mean July would be the next possibility of a rate cut.
In 2025, the FED Lowered FED Funds Rate 3 Times and shifted from Quantitative Tightening to a form of Quantitative Easing (aka. QE-Lite). This involves buying short-term Treasury bills to ensure ample bank reserves). While not formally labeled “quantitative easing,” many analysts and market participants refer to this type of ongoing, small-scale liquidity support as “QE Lite.” This is considered to be “Open-ended, ongoing as a balance-sheet management tool” rather than an emergency stimulus.
The Fed’s December 2025 asset-policy shifts were designed to make its late-2025 rate cuts actually work by restoring sufficient liquidity to money markets—loosening technical conditions without launching full quantitative easing.
Despite Quantitative Tightening, i.e., selling FED assets, the FED continued to increase the M2 money supply.
M2 Money supply is rising. The FED Funds Rate was 3.72% in December. Currently, it is holding steady at 3.64%.
Source: fred M2
For more see: FED Monetary Policy and Inflation.
Quantitative Policy
With higher gas prices due to the Iran war, the FED could be less likely to cut rates at its March 17–18 meeting. Commentators are also discounting rate cust at the April and June meetings as well. So, there might not be another rate cut announcement until July.
The FED Funds rate fell to 3.64% after being as high as 5.33% a little over a year earlier it remains there.
1 Year MIP Inflation Prediction vs. Actual:
Our prediction from a month ago was just slightly below our “Most Likely” line.
Go here to view our current MIP projection.
Inflation Chart
Monthly Inflation Compared to Previous Years:
The monthly inflation rate for February 2026 was 0.47% compared to 0.44% February a year ago.
See: Monthly Inflation Rate for more information and a complete table of Unadjusted Monthly Rates.
Misery Index
Unemployment 4.40% + Inflation 2.41% = 6.81%
This month, unemployment is up 0.1% and inflation is also up slightly, so the misery index is up to 6.81%. For the first half of 2024, the Misery index hovered around 7% before falling to the high 6s. It finished the year at 6.99% and moved up very slightly to 7.00% in January 2025.
Read More on the Misery Index…
Rate of Change
The NYSE ROC chart generated a BUY signal in January.
The NASDAQ ROC generated a BUY signal back in September.
Both BTC and ETH have generated Sell Signals. BTC in August, about a month prior to the all-time high. ETH generated a sell signal in November.
For more information, see: Crypto ROC.
Here are some articles you might enjoy in case you missed them:
From InflationData.com
Read more on UnemploymentData.com.
From Financial Trend Forecaster
From Elliott Wave University
From OptioMoney
Read more on InflationData.com.
