Kevin Warsh, Chairman of the Federal Reserve, speaking at the ECB Forum in Sintra, Portugal on July 1st, 2026. CNBCFederal Reserve Chairman Kevin Warsh has said that inflation is a “choice.” The same could also be true of how inflation is measured.While the central bank has its own favorite metric courtesy of the Commerce Department, the public data base is rife with other gauges of how price pressures are best viewed. It’s likely that many of them will get a serious look as the Warsh Fed plots what he called on Wednesday a “new course” for how it operates — and specifically what will be the data triggers for the ways it implements monetary policy.”My hope, my aspiration, is that nine-12 months from now we’re going to be using new technologies to understand what’s happening in the real economy in a contemporaneous, real-time way that positions us as central bankers to make better decisions,” he said during a discussion at the European Central Bank Forum on Monetary Policy in Sintra, Portugal.Warsh has formulated five task forces to look at an array of Fed functions. One will be data-focused while another will take a look at how officials measure, and react to, inflation.The review is sure to be about more than the age-old battle between headline inflation and core inflation, the latter excluding the day-to-day necessities of gas and groceries because of how volatile those prices can be. Instead, the Fed can use the process as a way to bring in other data points that paint a more complete picture of the cost-of-living challenges consumers face from inflation, which has been running hot for five years. A variety of choicesThese include measures from other central bank offices such as the Dallas Fed and its focus on “trimmed mean” infl …
