سؤال قراءة ستيب محلول — فهم التفاصيل (تدريب 6752)

Passage A (1) The rate of inflation can be measured by observing changes in the average price of an unchanging set of goods and services, a so-called market basket. Inflation is generally measured using a price index, such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI). A price index is constructed by dividing the price of a market basket in a given year by the price of the same basket of goods in a base year. The rate of inflation is then measured by calculating the percentage change in the price index across different periods. For example, the CPI was 260 in October 2020 and 277 in November 2021, which amounts to an inflation rate of 6.5% over this 12-month period. (2) Alternative price indexes will use different goods within their market baskets and are used for different purposes. For example, the CPI includes consumer goods and services typically purchased by households which is often used to adjust household incomes for inflation over time. By contrast, the gross domestic product (GDP) deflator, which is generally used to adjust GDP for inflation over time, measures inflation for all of the final goods and services produced in the USA There are a number of additional measures of inflation. including the Producer Price Index, Employment Cost Index, and Import/Export Price Index. Different inflation measures are calculated differently. For example, the CPI uses a fixed basket of goods and services, whereas the GDP deflator allows the composition of its market basket to change with spending patterns from period to period. Passage B Consumers’ cost of living depends on the prices of many goods and services and the share of each in the household budget. To measure the average consumer’s cost of living, government agencies conduct household surveys to identify a basket of commonly purchased items and follow over time the cost of purchasing this basket. (Housing expenses, including rent and mortgages, constitute the largest part of the consumer basket in the United States.) The cost of this basket at a given time expressed relative to a base year is the consumer price index (CPI), and the percentage change in the CPI over a certain period is consumer price inflation, the most widely used measure of inflation. (For example, if the base year CPI is 100 and the current CPI is 110, inflation is 10 percent over the period.) What do Passages A and B say about inflation?