"How is inflation only 8.5% per year?! My groceries went up 30% in 10 months!" - Let's ELI5 down INFLATION and CPI (Consumer Price Index).

One of the posts talking about inflation has a top-voted comment asking

I dunno where they get the 8.5%..

Well, did any of you ever ask yourself this question? You live in 2022. You have Google, Wikipedia and several other trustful sources of information and it shouldn't take you more than 20 seconds to find this out.

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Here you go%20is%20a%20measure%20that%20examines,of%20goods%20and%20averaging%20them).

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What Is the Consumer Price Index (CPI)?

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure that examines the weighted average of prices of a basket of consumer goods and services, such as transportation, food, and medical care. It is calculated by taking price changes for each item in the predetermined basket of goods and averaging them*. Changes in the CPI are used to assess price changes associated with the cost of living.*

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Some items will go up in cost more than others due to offer-demand law. People can, for instance, live without chocolate bars, but they can't live without a proper meal. So it's expected that people will stop buying chocolate bars before they stop buying ingredients for proper meals. So chocolate has less demand than meal ingredients, and the price of chocolate will be less impacted or not rise at all. Where I live, a box of Nestlé sorted chocolates got cheaper than before the pandemic, while Nestle Coffee got a 30% increase in 12 months.

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Seriously, ask yourself these questions and then ask fucking Google. It's not hard.