[Congressional Bills 114th Congress]
[From the U.S. Government Publishing Office]
[H.R. 3500 Introduced in House (IH)]

114th CONGRESS
  1st Session
                                H. R. 3500

  To require the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor, to 
 report the Consumer Price Index (CPI-W) using methodology employed in 
                                 1980.


_______________________________________________________________________


                    IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

                           September 11, 2015

  Mr. Jones introduced the following bill; which was referred to the 
                Committee on Education and the Workforce

_______________________________________________________________________

                                 A BILL


 
  To require the Bureau of Labor Statistics, Department of Labor, to 
 report the Consumer Price Index (CPI-W) using methodology employed in 
                                 1980.

    Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the 
United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

    This Act may be cited as the ``Honesty in Consumer Price Index 
Reporting Act''.

SEC. 2. FINDINGS.

    Congress finds the following:
            (1) Beginning in 1975, Congress required Social Security 
        retirement benefits to automatically increase annually in order 
        to provide a cost-of-living adjustment (COLA), based on 
        increases in the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners 
        and Clerical Workers, or CPI-W, a data set issued by the Bureau 
        of Labor Statistics.
            (2) The Social Security Administration website correctly 
        explains that the purpose of the COLA is ``to ensure that the 
        purchasing power of Social Security and Supplemental Security 
        Income (SSI) benefits is not eroded by inflation''.
            (3) The CPI-W data set published by the Bureau of Labor 
        Statistics has come under criticism, as the BLS has made 
        repeated changes in the methodology for calculation, 
        particularly since 1980, so that it no longer measures 
        maintaining a constant standard of living by reflecting changes 
        in price of a fixed market basket of goods and services, but 
        rather reflects the consumer substitution of less-expensive 
        products and services as prices rise.

SEC. 3. REQUIRED REPORTING OF CERTAIN CONSUMER PRICE INDEX DATA USING 
              1980 METHODOLOGY.

    (a) In General.--The Bureau of Labor Statistics shall regularly and 
routinely report an additional data set designed to replicate the 
Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners and Clerical Workers or 
CPI-W set reflecting a fixed market basket of goods and services, 
omitting consideration of substitution of goods and services due to 
changes in individual consumption patterns caused by price increases, 
utilizing the methodology that was employed by such Bureau in 1980.
    (b) Construction.--Nothing in subsection (a) shall prevent the 
Bureau of Labor Statistics from making changes in the market basket 
employed in the new data set required to be created under subsection 
(a) that are necessitated by technological changes which are fully 
disclosed to the public prior to making such changes.
    (c) Termination.--The requirement in subsection (a) shall terminate 
if the Bureau of Labor Statistics ends its reporting of CPI-W.
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