Since the Great Recession began in December 2007, the overall consumer price index is up 7.5 percent, or 1.9 percent a year. But there are plenty of people who insist that the figure must understate actual inflation, citing their own impressions from visits to stores.

In researching my Off the Charts column for this week, which looks at trends in apparel prices, I came across two categories that have been moving in opposite directions, for no reason I could discern. In one, inflation appears to be out of control. In the other there is deflation.

The government puts out a little-noted series on department store inventory prices. It covers goods sold in department stores, but includes prices from other stores. So prices charged at Wal-Mart and the Gap presumably count. It is not just a measure of what Macy’s and Nordstrom are charging.

Such prices can be volatile (SALE! SALE!), so the chart following uses three-month moving averages of seasonally adjusted prices, and shows changes from the level in the three months ended in December 2007.

Bureau of Labor Statistics, via Haver Analytics

Prices of a category called Women’s Outerwear and Girls’ Wear are down 4.8 percent, although that index has begun to rise recently. Other than shoes, that category includes most everything women wear that is supposed to be visible, including coats, dresses, skirts, pants and blouses.

Then there is the category Women’s Underwear, which by the way does not include stockings. It is up 32.5 percent, an annual rate of 7.8 percent.

What is going on? Cotton prices went up, as Stephanie Clifford reported a year ago. But cotton prices are lower now than they were then, and the underwear index is higher.

Would anyone care to explain why, as the economy went down, the prices of undergarments went up?

There is, alas, no separate category for men’s underwear.

Article source: http://feeds.nytimes.com/click.phdo?i=cfb86315e2bd15e3634c38c85771bb7f