If you claim that you haven't seen inflation, then I am going to guess that you are not the one in the household that is buying groceries. Example: Wheat-based products like pasta used to sell on sale for 50 to 80 cents /lb; now a sale price is $1/lb; or an increase of over 20% over the past 2 years.
Why not? For the average citizen prices at the local store are the thing that immediately effects their daily lives and will in turn cause them to change their spending habits accordingly subsequently effecting other parts of the economy beyond basic needs.
Because how much you spend for wheat is not what inflation is (unless the only thing money was used for was to buy wheat). The price changes of any one good is an inaccurate look at inflation. Oil tripled last year but that doesn't mean we went through 300% inflation.
Ok, but I don't measure inflation solely by wheat prices. The government puts a Fisher index on personal consumption expenditures, which include a lot of non-wheat items.
The government doesn't use food or fuel to track inflation prices anymore. They were thrown out for being "volatile," price-wise - to make it all look rosy when it definitely was not. (One would, logically, think that if food and fuel prices are volatile, that would indicate that something is sour in the fridge, so to speak)
Again, the Fed uses a Fisher index on personal expenditures (the PCEPI), not any basket of goods. Their inflation numbers track everything that people buy for themselves.
Core inflation and CPI are different beasts, not used by the Fed.
