February 2026 Inflation Update

The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics released its inflation report
for February 2026 on March 11^th.

Big News for our subscribers (at least we’re excited about it):

We are in the process of a massive update for the site. With all the news coming out of the Middle East, we’ve updated our Inflation-Adjusted Oil Price History Chart and Historical Oil Prices Tables.  We’ve updated the Historical Steampunk calculator that calculates annual inflation all the way back to 1774, and it is just plain fun to use.

We’ve already updated the Cumulative Inflation Calculator and made the tables easier to navigate. They collapse, so it is easier to scroll past them and continue on with the article. They are also searchable, reversible, and easier to read. We’ve consolidated some pages, so there is less jumping around, and we are adding a table of contents to the page so you don’t need to scroll so much, just jump to the right section. We also got rid of a bunch of ads, so the pages aren’t so cluttered.

Check out our Current Inflation page or Annual Inflation. And let us know what you think! We’d love to get your feedback. ~ Tim McMahon, editor.

Our Historical Inflation page now includes this chart of the erosion of the value of the dollar and some surprising facts about inflation and deflation prior to 1913. I’ll bet you can’t guess how much inflation occurred in the 126 years between 1774 and 1900. Annual Average Inflation Chart since 1774.

The following chart shows what one Dollar from 1774 would be worth over the years. The background image is an actual $6 note from 1776. It was redeemable in either Gold or Silver (as long as this particular Philadelphia issuer didn’t go bankrupt first). As you can see, from the green shaded area at some points along the way, $1 was actually worth more than the original dollar. But from 1935 onward, it was downhill all the way.

 

Now, back to the Inflation News.

The BLS reported Annual Inflation at 2.4%, unchanged from last month.  But when we look at it to 2 decimal places, we see it rose very slightly from 2.39% to 2.42%.

• CPI Index rose from 325.252 to 326.785
• Monthly Inflation for February 2026 was 0.47%, up from 0.44% in February 2025. 
• Next release April 10^th, 2026

Annual Inflation Table

	Jan	Feb	Mar	Apr	May	Jun	Jul	Aug	Sep	Oct	Nov	Dec
2026	2.39%	2.41%
2025	3.00%	2.82%	2.39%	2.31%	2.35%	2.67%	2.70%	2.92%	3.01%	NA	2.74%	2.68%
2024	3.09%	3.15%	3.48%	3.36%	3.27%	2.97%	2.89%	2.53%	2.44%	2.60%	2.75%	2.89%
2023	6.41%	6.04%	4.98%	4.93%	4.05%	2.97%	3.18%	3.67%	3.70%	3.24%	3.14%	3.35%

BLS Commentary:

Factors Driving Current Inflation

• The War in the Middle East has closed the Straits of Hormuz, disrupting Oil flows.
• The FED has switched from a Tight Money policy to looser money.
• In addition to oil, many other commodities flow through the Straits, like Fertilizer.

Some commentators are suggesting massive increases in food prices are on the horizon due to either a shortage or just higher prices for fertilizer. Nitrogen fertilizer is the primary fertilizer for Corn (and the U.S. uses corn in almost everything, i.e., corn syrup, corn starch, corn oil, dextrose, maltodextrin, corn meal, corn flour, ethanol, animal feed, and High-fructose Corn Syrup (HFCS). Fortunately, the primary source of Nitrogen fertilizer is Natural Gas. ~70–80% of the energy used to produce nitrogen fertilizers comes from natural gas, and the U.S. has abundant Natural Gas, but worldwide food shortages could drive up prices here as well.

One advantage of a corn shortage might be a more rapid reduction in the use of HFCS, as Robert Kennedy has recommended. HFCS proliferation is a major component of the U.S. obesity epidemic.

The key is the Haber–Bosch process (invented by Fritz Haber and Carl Bosch in the early 1900s). That process takes nitrogen from the air (N₂), combines it with hydrogen derived mostly from natural gas (CH₄), and produces ammonia (NH₃). Ammonia becomes fertilizers like urea and ammonium nitrate. 

BLS Inflation Components:

Looking at “Table A” below, we can see that on an annual basis, energy commodities and gasoline are still down, but Energy Services and Utilities are up fairly significantly, with Natural Gas (called “Utility Piped Gas”) up the most. On a monthly basis, Fuel Oil is UP a massive 11.1% and Natural Gas is up 3.1%.

Quantitative Policy

The FED Funds rate fell to 3.64% after being as high as 5.33% a little over a year earlier it remains there.

 

1 Year MIP Inflation Prediction vs. Actual:

Our prediction from a month ago was just slightly below our “Most Likely” line.

Go here to view our current MIP projection.

Inflation Chart

Monthly Inflation Compared to Previous Years:

The monthly inflation rate for February 2026 was 0.47% compared to 0.44% February a year ago.

 

See: Monthly Inflation Rate for more information and a complete table of Unadjusted Monthly Rates.

Misery Index

Unemployment 4.40% + Inflation 2.41% = 6.81%

This month, unemployment is up 0.1% and inflation is also up slightly, so the misery index is up to 6.81%. For the first half of 2024, the Misery index hovered around 7% before falling to the high 6s. It finished the year at 6.99% and moved up very slightly to 7.00% in January 2025.

 

Read More on the Misery Index…

Rate of Change

Read more on InflationData.com.