PCE Price Index (Personal Consumption Expenditures Inflation) in United States
The Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge — tracks price changes across a broader, chain-weighted basket of goods and services than the CPI.
Data
| Period | PCE Index | Growth (YoY) |
|---|---|---|
| Q3 2026 | 131.659 | +3.7% |
| Q2 2026 | 131.454 | +3.7% |
| Q1 2026 | 130.403 | +3.5% |
| Q4 2025 | 128.576 | +2.9% |
| Q3 2025 | 127.625 | +2.8% |
| Q2 2025 | 126.743 | +2.6% |
| Q1 2025 | 125.941 | +2.4% |
| Q4 2024 | 124.979 | +2.7% |
| Q3 2024 | 124.164 | +2.3% |
| Q2 2024 | 123.539 | +2.5% |
About this Dataset
The Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index is the Federal Reserve's preferred measure of US inflation, published monthly by the Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA) as part of the national income and product accounts. It tracks price changes across a broader basket than the CPI — one that includes goods and services purchased on consumers' behalf by employers and government programs, such as employer-sponsored health insurance.
The Fed's 2% inflation target is defined in terms of PCE inflation, not CPI — a distinction that matters for anyone modeling monetary policy paths.
- Coverage: All personal consumption expenditures across US households
- Frequency: Monthly, released alongside the BEA's personal income and outlays report
- Base period: 2017 = 100
- Geographic scope: United States, national aggregate
- Data history: January 1959 to present (811+ observations)
- Methodology: Chain-weighted (Fisher) index, which updates expenditure weights quarterly to reflect consumer substitution — unlike the CPI's periodically-fixed basket
The chain-weighted methodology is one reason PCE inflation has most often run below CPI inflation over long periods: as relative prices shift, the PCE basket adapts faster to how consumers actually respond, while the CPI basket holds substitution effects fixed for longer between weight updates. The gap is not fixed, though. The two indexes also weight categories differently, with shelter carrying a much smaller share in PCE, so the ordering can flip. In July 2026, PCE inflation of 3.7% ran above CPI-U inflation of 3.3%.
The Q3 2026 row in the table reflects July only, since the August 2026 release had not yet posted as of this update.