annualized means "(1+r)^n" where r is the increase/month and n is number of months. inflation is generally measured "over year", so "3.6% this month" would mea

annualized means "(1+r)^n" where r is the increase/month and n is number of months. inflation is generally measured "over year", so "3.6% this month" would mean "3.6% higher than last year at this time", as in "this month's increase plus the increases for the last 11 months total up to 3.6% for the year". It has no predictive power for the future, and it's not an extrapolation of this month's increase for easy comparison to show what it would be for a year.