The TrueCOLA Reporter's Desk
Turn the CPI story into a household story.
The CPI measures how prices change. TrueCOLA shows what income, taxes, and essential costs leave behind each month, across seven household types, 50 states, and all 435 congressional districts.
Current report
July 2026
Coverage
435 districts
Households
Seven types
Housing
Four tracks
Quality gate
334 checks
A reporting companion
The CPI is authoritative. TrueCOLA adds a different lens.
The Consumer Price Index is the nation's authoritative measure of average price change. TrueCOLA does not replace, revise, or compete with the CPI. It adds a transparent household-budget view built from official source data and a clearly identified Zillow rent input.
The difference matters in reporting. CPI answers how prices changed for a broad market basket. TrueCOLA reports how published income, taxes, housing, healthcare, and essential costs meet in a monthly margin for a particular household and place.
If the percentage is the headline, the margin is the household consequence your audience can examine.
01
Put the release in context
Pair the official CPI release with a plainly labeled TrueCOLA household margin. Keep the measures distinct and link readers to both.
02
Localize the national story
Move from a national percentage to a state or congressional district result that your audience recognizes.
03
Compare household experiences
Examine workers, retirees, Social Security recipients, renters, and homeowners without pretending one household represents everyone.
Local Brief Builder
Use it. Cite it. Trace it.
Open one published district row, copy the fact and citation, and see exactly which source conditions travel with it.
Build a local brief
Find the household behind the headline.
Select a place, household, and housing situation. The tool retrieves the published row exactly as it appears in the current report. It does not create or recalculate a TrueCOLA figure.
Assignment desk
Choose a state and district to open a citation-ready brief.
Every result includes the published figures, a permanent district URL, source notes, reuse guidance, and text you can copy into your reporting notes.
Reporting resources
Start with the evidence, not a press release.
The current report, source documentation, machine-readable data, and correction record are public. No registration is required to examine or cite them.
Publication guidance
Open where ours. Attributed where sourced. Traceable everywhere.
These are practical reporting instructions, not a transfer of rights owned by a source provider. For bulk redistribution or another unusual use, contact the Project before publication.
TrueCOLA analysis
Published figures and reasonable portions of TrueCOLA-created writing may be used for journalism with attribution under the current Terms of Service.
If you change, recalculate, or combine a figure, label your work so it cannot be mistaken for an official TrueCOLA publication.
Federal sources
Cite the responsible agency and TrueCOLA's analysis. Do not use government emblems or suggest that an agency produced, reviewed, or endorsed the TrueCOLA report.
BLS states that its published material is public domain, apart from previously copyrighted images, and asks users to cite BLS.
Zillow-derived rent
Keep this attribution with every renter chart or page: Data Provided by Zillow Group through the Zillow Observed Rent Index (ZORI).
Do not use a Zillow logo, imply a relationship or endorsement, or present Zillow source material as TrueCOLA-owned. Zillow's current terms continue to apply.
Know what you are reporting
Keep the measures distinct.
- TrueCOLA is independent and nonpartisan. It is not a BLS, SSA, Zillow, or other government publication.
- A TrueCOLA monthly margin is not an inflation rate and should not be described as a replacement CPI.
- A negative margin is an estimated household shortfall, not an individual financial diagnosis.
- Rankings apply to the published household model and should not be generalized to every person in a district.
- Check the report month, methodology, source notes, and corrections record before publication.
Deadline assistance
On deadline? Tell us what you need.
Ask for help locating a district, a methodology walkthrough, an interview, or confirmation that you are describing and citing a figure correctly. Include your outlet, deadline, time zone, and geography.
Select “Press or media” on the contact form.