Right, obviously you can only go so far on the steak to hamburger. But there are lots of places for abuse. The problem is that the definition for the CPI keep

Right, obviously you can only go so far on the steak to hamburger. But there are lots of places for abuse. The problem is that the definition for the CPI keeps changing, and thus, it's meaning over time is less useful. What this study showed is that perceived inflation is real and doesn't jive with the numbers that the economists produce. Who is right? A 500 person sample will be good to predict the sentiment of the US as a whole. Gallup says that they only need 1,000 people to get +-4% so this is reasonable. Ask yourself, which is more likely? The entirety of the US population doesn't understand how prices affect them day-to-day. Or that some economists have devised a moderately useful but not flawless metric? Price formation comes from the relative values that every human being places on the marginal unit of a good. Prices are an emergent property of people interacting chaotically in a marketplace. To suggest that literally EVERYONE's ability to sense the change in price over time you also need to throw out the very people that set the prices to begin with. EDIT: Link to gallup http://www.gallup.com/poll/101872/how-does-gallup-polling-work.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/101872/how-does-gallup-polling-wo...