I found myself curious to see what recent trends in inflation are within the United States. I used the consumer price index and producer price index as two indicators of inflation. The consumer price index (CPI) is calculated by taking price changes for each item in the predetermined basket of goods and averaging them; the goods are weighted according to their importance. The producer price index (PPI) measures the average change over time in the selling prices received by domestic producers for their output. The two sets of numbers should give a good representation of inflation in the US economy.
My data came from the US Bureau of Labor Statistics. I might need to try to do a trend analysis on the data some time soon. I would be curious to see what the result would be.