Trimmed Mean PCE Inflation Rate: 12-Month Core PCE Measure Monthly Since 1978

The Trimmed Mean PCE inflation rate is an alternative measure of underlying (core) inflation in the US Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, produced by the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas from Bureau of Economic Analysis data. For each month it sorts the price changes of roughly 178 PCE components from largest decline to largest increase and discards the most extreme movements at both tails — 24% of the weight from the lower tail and 31% from the upper tail — before taking a weighted average of what remains. This dataset covers the 12-month Trimmed Mean PCE inflation rate monthly from 1978, the persistent-inflation measure Eco3min uses as the inflation axis of its macro regime classification.

Dataset: Trimmed Mean PCE Inflation Rate, 12-month (1978–present) · Updated 2026-04-01

Source: FRED · Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas

Macro Takeaway

Dataset Overview

Dataset Variables

The CSV and Excel files contain the following columns.

Column names match the CSV headers exactly.

Download the Complete Dataset

The full Trimmed Mean PCE inflation dataset is available in CSV and Excel formats.

FRED Direct CSV Access

The underlying series is available from FRED under series code PCETRIM12M159SFRBDAL:

https://fred.stlouisfed.org/graph/fredgraph.csv?id=PCETRIM12M159SFRBDAL

Direct CSV Access — Eco3min Structured Dataset

https://eco3min.fr/dataset/trimmed-mean-pce-inflation.csv

This URL returns the complete dataset in CSV format. It can be used directly in pandas, R, curl, or any data tool.

Using the Dataset in Python

import pandas as pd

url = "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/trimmed-mean-pce-inflation.csv"
df = pd.read_csv(url, parse_dates=["date"])

print(df.head())
print(df.describe())

Using the Dataset in R

library(readr)

url <- "https://eco3min.fr/dataset/trimmed-mean-pce-inflation.csv"
df <- read_csv(url)

head(df)
summary(df)

Both examples load the dataset directly from the URL — no download or API key required.

Methodology

Eco3min pulls the 12-month Trimmed Mean PCE inflation rate from the FRED API and stores it without transformation. The dataset is refreshed daily through an automated pipeline so the published file stays aligned with the latest Dallas Fed value; the underlying series is updated monthly, following the BEA’s release schedule for the Personal Income and Outlays report, and recent observations are revised as the source data is revised.

The Trimmed Mean PCE is computed by the Dallas Fed from BEA component-level data on roughly 178 disaggregated PCE price and quantity series available consistently since 1977. Each month the component price changes are ranked, the most extreme tails are trimmed (an asymmetric 24% lower / 31% upper since 2009), and the remaining components are reaggregated. The trimming proportions were calibrated to minimise the distance between the trimmed measure and a centred long-run moving average of headline inflation, so the series behaves as a proxy for trend (core) inflation.

Historical Regimes

Late 1970s–1981 — Great Inflation. Trimmed Mean PCE ran at high single digits as broad-based price pressures took hold across the consumption basket, peaking around the turn of the decade before Federal Reserve tightening took effect.

1982–1990s — Volcker disinflation and the Great Moderation. The measure fell steadily through the 1980s and settled into a low, stable range as inflation expectations re-anchored, broadly tracking the economy’s transition to two decades of subdued price growth.

2010–2020 — Persistent undershoot. For much of the decade the Trimmed Mean PCE held below the Federal Reserve’s 2% objective, capturing the structurally soft inflation environment that kept policy accommodative and motivated the 2020 shift to flexible average inflation targeting.

2021–2022 — Post-pandemic surge. Trimmed mean inflation climbed to multi-decade highs as price increases broadened well beyond food and energy; because the breadth of the move showed up across components, the trimmed measure registered the persistence that headline swings alone could obscure.

2023–2026 — Gradual disinflation. The measure eased back toward the 2–2.5% area as the broadening reversed, remaining somewhat above the 2% objective into early 2026 rather than returning fully to the pre-pandemic norm.

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Related Research

Macroeconomic Dataset Hub

This dataset is part of the Eco3min macro-financial data repository.

Explore the Eco3min Dataset Hub

Sources

• Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas — Trimmed Mean PCE Inflation Rate (publisher; methodology in Dolmas, 2005, Dallas Fed Working Paper 0506)
• Bureau of Economic Analysis — underlying PCE component price data
• FRED, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis — series PCETRIM12M159SFRBDAL (aggregator via which Eco3min extracts the data)

Dataset Reference

Eco3min Research. (2026). Trimmed Mean PCE Inflation Rate, 12-month (1978–present).<br> https://eco3min.fr/en/trimmed-mean-pce-inflation-dataset/