The 1990 methodology looks like "CPI-U + 4%" and the 1980 methodology looks like "CPI-U + .25%*(year-1984)." If we assume for a second that there is a methodolo

The 1990 methodology looks like "CPI-U + 4%" and the 1980 methodology looks like "CPI-U + .25%*(year-1984)." If we assume for a second that there is a methodology beyond hand-waving those offsets into graphs in order to obtain money from people like my parents, we would probably be looking for basket items with constant, high price increases over the last 40 years and (log-)linear escalating price increases over the last 40 years. Something to do with health care and education respectively, maybe? That's almost certainly giving Shadow Stats more benefit of the doubt than they deserve, but after the manufacturing figure debacle (see below) I'm open to the idea of spelunking into these calculations and debating the merits of various choices they make. https://qz.com/1269172/the-epic-mistake-about-manufacturing-thats-cost-americans-millions-of-jobs/ https://qz.com/1269172/the-epic-mistake-about-manufacturing-... (Summary: "American Manufacturing is doing better than ever" figures were obtained by including Intel in the basket and multiplying up their revenue using Moore's law as a hedonic adjustment.)