Announcement of the 1964 Revision of the CPI

BEGINNING With its January 1964 report (to appear near the end of February), the Bureau of Labor Statistics will issue an updated and improved Consumer Price Index, based on prices in an up-to-date sample of cities, retail stores, and service establishments. The list of consumer goods and services for which prices are obtained will also be modernized and the index will be calculated with expenditure weights which reflect spending patterns for urban wage earner and clerical consumers in 1960-61. The updated index will be issued as a continuation of the previously published series, thus providing an uninterrupted series of price indexes for users interested in observing price changes over a considerable period.

For the convenience of users, the Bureau will also continue to publish the CPI on its present, unrevised basis for the months of January through June 1964. These figures will be designated as the "old series" and the updated indexes will be called the "new series." The base period will remain 1957-59-100, although the indexes will also be published on the 1947-49 base.

A significant change in the index will be an extension of coverage, now limited to families of two or more persons, to include single persons, to make it more representative of the total urban wage and clerical-worker population. A U.S. index covering only wage-earner and clericalworker families of two or more persons will also be published, as in the past, for the convenience of those who prefer to adhere to the more limited index. Present plans do not call for calculation of a separate index for single persons. Both the total index covering all urban wage and clerical workers and that for families alone will be joined to the current index as of December 1963 to form continuous series.

Derivation of the expenditure weights f revised index has not yet been completed preliminary examination of the expenditur shows that food will have considerably le portance in the new index, while weigh housing and transportation will be rela larger. These changes represent shifts in sumer spending habits in the decade sind earlier expenditure surveys from which the c index weights were derived. The national will be obtained by combining city indexes weights based on the 1960 Census of Popul

The revised city sample, beginning Ja 1964, will contain 50 metropolitan areas and selected to represent all urban places in the U States including Alaska and Hawaii. It pro an up-to-date geographic representation o total urban population. Six additional cities will be included in 1966.

City Indexes

The Bureau's program provides for publi of city indexes only for the largest metrop areas as outlined below and summarized in t

A. Updated indexes for 14 large metropolitan are included in the present index will be published beg in 1964 for families and single consumers combined old series for families in these cities will be continu the 6-month overlap period through June 1964.

B. Indexes will be initiated for three metro areas which are not now included in the Consume: Index-Buffalo, Dallas, and Honolulu.1 These v added to the national index and separate city inde families and single consumers combined will be pub

C. Six other cities will be added to the national early in 1966, as soon as expenditure surveys are pleted to obtain comprehensive weight data and can be established on the new list of items. Four o cities-Cincinnati, Houston, Kansas City, and 1 apolis-are represented in the present index, but w be included in the updated national index during and 1965. Meanwhile, these four city indexes

1 Under provisions of special legislation, the Bureau of Labor also publishes in a separate release semiannual price indexes for four cities. Prices will be obtained in one of these-Anchorage-on a c cycle for inclusion in the revised national CPI.

continued for families alone, calculated from the present samples of stores and commodities and present expenditure weights. Indexes for the two other cities-San Diego and Milwaukee-will not be available until 1966.

D. Two cities-Portland (Oreg.), and Scranton-for which city indexes have been published, did not fall in the revised national sample of cities. Consumer price indexes for these two cities will be discontinued as of April and May 1964, respectively.

Thus, city indexes on the new base will be available for 17 cities in 1964 and 1965 and for 4 cities on the old base. the old base. Beginning in 1966, separate city indexes will be published on the new basis as part of the national index for 23 cities.

Housing Shelter Rent

Rent of dwelling Home ownership

Fuel and utilities

Solid and petroleum fuels
Gas and electricity

Comments

Available for cities; previously published for U.S. only.

Includes room rents and hotel and motel rates not shown separately.

Includes home purchase, mortgage interest, settlement charges, taxes, insurance, and repairs and mainte

nance.

Includes telephone, water, and sewer not shown separately.

Household furnishings and oper- Includes housefurnishings and house

ation

Apparel

Men's and boys'

Women's and girls'

Footwear

Transportation

Private Public

Health and recreation

Medical care

Personal care

Reading and recreation
Other goods and services

keeping supplies and services.

Includes other apparel not shown separately.

will be calculated back to 1953. Table 2 shows the series which will be published regularly in the CPI report for the U.S. average and for individual cities, beginning with the index for January 1964.

Users of the Consumer Price Indexes should regard the new indexes as continuations of the present indexes. Where legal or definitional considerations preclude them from doing so, the Bureau will be glad to assist users facing such problems. The Bureau also is planning to publish in October 1963 a statement giving possible methods of adapting existing wage escalation contracts to the new index.

-DORIS P. ROTHWELL Division of Consumer Prices and Price Indexes

A Review of Work Stoppages During 1962

THE NUMBER OF STRIKES and the amount of strike idleness in 1962 dropped below levels for most postwar years, but increased over 1961. The number of workers involved in strikes beginning in 1962 dropped to the lowest level since 1942. (See chart and table 1.) Total man-days of idleness, at 18.6 million, was lower than in any postwar year except 1957 and 1961. Total idleness diminished by 0.16 percent, the estimated total work time of employees in nonagricultural establishments excluding government.1 Strikes with duration of 60 days or more involved nearly 10 percent of the total workers and accounted for more than two-fifths of the idleness.

postwar years table 2. They accounted for two-thirds of the workers and man-da idleness. A comparatively low proportion total idleness (25.8 percent) resulted from s involving 10,000 workers or more. Since in only 3 years, 1951, 1953, and 1957, ha percentage of total man-days been lower th 1962. In years when major strikes occurred steel industry, the proportion of total idlen this size group ranged from 43.4 to 73.7 pe Continuing the trend of most postwar years, three-fifths of the stoppages involved fewer 100 workers, but accounted for only 6.2 perc the total number of workers involved and 7. cent of total strike idleness.

15.9

1 The number of stoppages and workers relate to those beginning in the year; average duration, to those ending in the year. Man-days of idleness include all stoppages in effect.

Available information for earlier periods appears in Handbook of Labor Statistics (BLS Bulletin 1016, 1951), table E-2. For a discussion of the procedures involved in the collection and compilation of work stoppage statistics, see Techniques of Preparing Major BLS Statistical Series (BLS Bulletin 1168, 1954), ch. 12.

2 In these tables, workers are counted more than once if they were involved in more than 1 stoppage during the year.

3 Figures are simple averages; each stoppage is given equal weight regardless of its size.

NOTE: Because of rounding, sums of individual items may n totals.

Sixteen major stoppages involved 10,0 more workers each, compared with 14 in 196 17 in 1960. Slightly more than 300,000 wo were involved in strikes in this size group, jus half as many as in 1961, and except for 195 lowest in the postwar years. Idleness in strikes (4,800,000 man-days) accounted fourth of the total. Among the largest stop were those involving longshoremen on the At and Gulf coasts (50,000), construction work

1 These data include all work stoppages known to the Bureau Statistics and various cooperating agencies involving six or more wor lasting a full day or shift or longer. Figures on workers involved a days idle include all workers made idle for as long as one shift in ments directly involved in a stoppage; they do not measure the in secondary effects on other establishments or industries whose e are made idle as a result of material or service shortages.

A forthcoming bulletin will provide additional data and analysis pages during 1962. For data on 1961 stoppages, see "A Review Stoppages During 1961," Monthly Labor Review, June 1962, pp. 662Analysis of Work Stoppages, 1961 (BLS Bulletin 1339, 1962).

The terms "work stoppage" and "strike" are used interchangeab article, and include lockouts.

the Northern California area (38,000) and in the Detroit area (25,000), New York newspaper workers (20,000), and employees of the Lockheed Aircraft Corp. (20,000).

Average strike duration in 1962 (24.6 days) persisted at the high levels which commenced in 1959. The 862 stoppages of 30 days or more (table 3) accounted for slightly over a fifth of the stoppages ending in 1962, equivalent to the 1961 proportion. These longer strikes, however, accounted for 70 percent of idleness in 1962, compared with just about 50 percent in 1961. Stoppages lasting 90 days or more numbered 224, the highest since 1946. At the other extreme, 2 out of 5 strikes ended in less than a week. These stoppages involved three-eighths of the total of idle workers but accounted for only one-twentieth of idle time.

which continued into 1963 (114 days); Eastern Air Lines; construction work in Idaho, Oregon, and Washington (61 days), Northern California (57 days), and Eastern Michigan (52 days); longshoring (October and December-January— 39 days); and the Chicago & North Western Railway Co. (30 days).

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