What's a 'chained CPI'?
A govt consumer price index that will will change the govt’s method of calculating cost-of-living adjustments so they rise more slowly. It slows the growth of social security and other benefits.
Chained CPI is a crappy way of keeping the COLAs they pay (like Social Security recipients) that are supposed to be inflation adjusted lower than what you and I understand is inflation. I have the simplistic notion that if I go to the store and buy a Widget one day and buy another identical Widget at a later date at higher price, inflation has occurred.
Assumptions are made that spending habits change as money becomes scarce, so a person would start buying store brand rather than name brand products. If I buy a Widget at a certain price, then go back and buy a Widget at a later date, it is assumed I’ll buy a cheaper version of the Widget, therefore no inflation has occurred.
It goes by another name, IMO: “Cooking the books.”