About a quarter of US inflation is a number no one pays: an estimate of what homeowners would charge themselves in rent. Understand that line and half of the confusing inflation prints stop being confusing.
The largest single component of US consumer price inflation is not gas, groceries, or health care. It is owners' equivalent rent — an estimate of what homeowners would pay to rent the house they already own. In recent years it has run at roughly a quarter of headline CPI and around a third of core CPI, though the BLS recalculates every component's relative importance annually, so the exact share drifts and is worth looking up. Either way, the biggest line in the index is an imputed price for a transaction that never occurs.
— Educational, not financial advice.