Home / US Real Numbers
Our counting rule
Real numbers, not smoothed ones
The Chapwood Index asks a simple question: what do people actually pay? It tracks the unadjusted price of about 500 everyday items in the 50 biggest U.S. cities, and sets the result beside the official inflation figure. We borrow that spirit for every number on this site.
What the Chapwood Index does
Everyday items
Coffee, fuel, rent, phone plans, haircuts, school supplies. Things people really buy, not a statistical basket.
Local, city by city
Prices are reported for each city, because life in one place is not the national average.
Unadjusted
Its stated aim is no substitutions or weighting tricks, so it can be set beside the official CPI and compared.
Fair warning: the Chapwood Index covers U.S. cities only, and economists dispute its method. It has no Kelowna, BC or Canada data. We use its principles (local, unadjusted, shown openly, compared with the official view), not its figures.
Our four rules for every stat
- Local first. Show the number for the place (Kelowna, a BC district, Canada) before any national or world average.
- Raw, then adjusted. Show the plain count or price. If we combine or weigh numbers, say how.
- Official vs lived. Where an official figure exists (Statistics Canada, Elections BC, Elections Canada), put it next to what people feel or what local sources report.
- Label the strength. Every number carries a tag, below.
The three tags
CountedReportedEditorial
- Counted — a published, checkable figure: candidate lists from Elections BC, vote totals from 2024, dates of elections.
- Reported — what news outlets or campaigns have said (platforms, backgrounds), attributed and not verified by us.
- Editorial — our own 0–10 judgement: the seven capital scores, the Charter and Alberta Act scores, the Living ↔ Living Dead tiers. A first draft, not a measurement, and it will change as evidence arrives.
Where it applies
Next step: widen the Kelowna table to groceries, fuel and childcare, and add provincial price figures. Tell us which items matter most.