The Digest most often uses the Consumer Price Index to compare purchasing power over time. To compute a price index, a base year or period is selected. The base year price is then designated as the base or reference price to which the prices for other years or periods are related. Current and constant dollars are used in a number of tables to express finance data. Unless otherwise noted, all figures are in current dollars, not adjusted for inflation.
Constant dollars provide a measure of the impact of inflation on the current dollars.
The result is an adjusted dollar value as it would presumably exist if prices were the same as the base year-in other words, as if the dollar had constant purchasing power. Any changes in the constant dollar amounts would reflect only changes in the real values. Tables may not include data for all years implied in table titles.