During recent elections inflation has dominated the economic news. It’s reality that general prices have increased. It’s also reality that cause, solution, and likely trends of inflation remain controversial topics and inevitably will be a source of political and media chatter, some if it credible but much — likely most — of it disingenuous and pure idiocy.

Today we neglect blame and solution and stick to inflation’s measurement, which can also be controversial. The U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) tracks inflation with a number of indices, the most generally followed being the Consumer Price Index (CPI) that tracks prices of a basket of goods and services purchased by a typical urban consumer.  

For 84 years, PNC Financial Services of Pittsburg, Pa. has computed the whimsical Christmas Price Index tracking gifts that the affluent “True Love” has purchased for the object of his affection in the song, “The Twelve Days of Christmas.” Let’s take a look at these prices and compare them to 2024 and the BLS CPI.

The price of the Partridge in a Pear Tree has increased from $370.18 in 2024 to $420.18 in 2025 for a 13.5 percent increase. This is due totally to the increase of the Pear Tree, from $350 to $400 while the price of the Partridge remained stable at $20.18. The PNC economists attribute the increased cost of the Pear Tree to increased land, labor, and fertilizer costs, with which farmers can readily identify.

As with the Partridge, the price of the Two Turtle Doves has remained stable, costing the True Love $750.

Following the trend of the birds, the price of the Three French Hens remained unchanged from 2024, at $346.50 during 2025.

Still following the price stability of the birds, the price of the Four Calling Birds remains stable in 2025, costing the True Love $599.96. While setting back the True Love a significant sum, he has thus far suffered no severe consequence of inflation. This is about to change.

With the price of the Five Golden Rings, the True Love is victim of the surging price of gold. The price of the rings increased from $1,245 in 2024 to $1,649.90, for a staggering 32.5 percent increase in 2025. Prices of gold and other precious metals typically vary inversely with the value of the U.S. dollar, its decline a consequence of recent and expected Fed rate cuts.

In contrast to the other feathered gifts, the price of the Six Geese-a-Laying has increased from $900 to $930 for a 3.3 percent increase. No reason is given for this increase. Perhaps the Geese called attention to the past high price of eggs and have used bargaining power to threaten retribution for its recent decline.

The Seven Swans-a-Swimming have long been the most costly item of the unique gifts of the song. But fortunately for the song’s True Love, the price has remained constant at $13,125 for a zero percent increase in 2025.

The price of the Eight Maids-a-Milking has remained constant at a mere $58. With changes in dairy production technology characterized by milking parlors, robotic technology, and foreign-born labor doing much of the drudgery work of dairy production, it is amazing that the True Love can even find labor to do the hand milking, especially at such low cost. Perhaps they are willing to do hard labor for a spell just to engage in a bit of nostalgia. 

In contrast to the Eight Maids-a-Milking who offer their services for a mere pittance, the remaining human gifts are less forgiving. The Nine Ladies Dancing enjoyed a raise of 3.5 percent, from $8557.37 to $8856.88, for their performance.

The Ten Lords-a-leaping have done even better, for the first time in memory exceeding the Seven Swans-a-Swimming as the most costly item of the gifts. They enjoyed a raise from $15,579.65 to $16,836.14 for a generous 8.1 percent increase. Are the Lords-a-Leaping more talented than the Ladies Dancing? That’s doubtful. It must be some combination of bargaining power and/or gender discrimination.  

While the musicians received a smaller percentage raise than the dancers, they did enjoy a 2.2 percent raise. The Eleven Pipers Piping enjoyed a remuneration of $3,797.48 over the $3,714.96 received in 2024.  

The Twelve Drummers Drumming enjoyed an increase from $4,016.85 to 4,106.08 for the same 2.2 percent increase as the pipers. The drummers undoubtedly were represented by the same agent as the pipers, less aggressive than the agent employed by the dancers.

The complete set of gifts comes to $51,476.12 compared to $49,263.47 in 2024, for a 4.5 percent increase hitting the True Love. This PNC CPI compares to the November year-over-year BLS CPI of 2.7 percent. The October BLS year over year index normally used for this exercise was not computed due to the government shutdown.

The BLS also computes a “Core CPI” that eliminates the volatile prices of food and energy. The PNC also eliminates what is normally its most volatile gift, the Swans-a-Swimming, to compute their core index. Leaving out the Swans, the PNC Core CPI would be 6.1 percent compared to the BLS Core CPI of 2.6. 

This is not the end of the story. Recall that in the song those twelve gifts are repeatedly given over twelve days, labeled as the “true cost of Christmas.” With repetitive giving over the twelve days, the True Love racks up a hefty $218,542.98 compared to $209,272.00 in 2024 for a 4.4 percent increase.

The PNC CPI can be used as a less boring way to instruct students on construction and use of an index. A question to students might be, “Why is the True Cost of Christmas index less than the Cost of Christmas with one set of gifts?” The student who understands the exercise would correctly answer that not all the items in the index carry equal weight; the most expensive have greater influence than the less expensive gifts. As the gifts are repeated multiple times, the influence of the more expensive gifts is increased. In the song, the expensive gifts had a smaller percentage price increase than that of the total index. The expensive swans, given multiple times had a zero increase. The most expensive gift, the Lords-Leaping, had only a 2.2 percent increase, less than the 4.4 percent of the initial single set. Therefore, by including these items repeatedly, the heavily weighted items, especially the Swans with zero price increase, they drag down the index calculation that includes these gifts only once.

In most years, the CPI Christmas Index has more closely approximated the BLS CPI than occurred in 2025. This demonstrates the importance of what components are included in an index, and their weights.  

We can’t predict future prices but we know that over time the general price level increases. We can therefore predict that prices will continue to rise, regardless of promises or policies of any politician or actions of the Fed. The economic policy objective is to keep prices from increasing too fast for the good of the economy, hence the reasonable Fed objective of around two percent — leaving much to discuss in future columns.

— John Waelti of Monroe, a retired professor of economics, can be reached at jjwaelti1@tds.net. His column appears monthly in the Monroe Times.