Manshoea price ledger for American shoes
12-month change to Sep 2026: Men’s +4.5%Women’s +3.9%Kids’ +0.4%
Data and method

How we calculate

Data last retrieved from BLS on October 23, 2026 · latest month September 2026 · 10,786 monthly values across 18 series

Every number on Manshoe is computed from price indexes published by the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). A script reads the BLS Public Data API every night, checks the new values and rebuilds the site only if they pass. Nothing is typed in by hand.

The series we use

Consumer price indexes (series starting CUUR and CUSR) are for all urban consumers, U.S. city average. Producer price indexes (WPU, PCU) follow prices received by U.S. producers; the shoe retailer index (PCU458210458210) measures retail margins. Import price indexes (EIU) measure prices paid to foreign sellers and exclude U.S. import duties.

The calculator

Value today = price paid × (index in the latest month) ÷ (average index in the year of purchase).

Example: a $60 pair of men’s shoes in 1995. The men’s footwear index averaged 134.417 in 1995 and stood at 161.769 in September 2026. $60 × 161.769 ÷ 134.417 = $72.21. The overall-inflation comparison uses the all-items index the same way.

We use annual averages for past years because most people remember the year of a purchase, not the month. For the current year we use the average of the months published so far. Men’s, women’s, and boys’ and girls’ indexes start in December 1977, so they cover purchases from 1978; the all-footwear index covers 1947 onward.

An index follows the price of comparable shoes over time, adjusting for changes in quality and in the shoes stores carry. The answer is therefore what a typical pair like yours would cost, not the current price of the same model.

Annual averages and the October 2025 gap

Annual averages are the mean of the twelve monthly values. BLS did not collect October 2025 prices because of the federal government shutdown and published no October 2025 CPI, so our 2025 averages use the eleven published months, and twelve-month changes that would need October 2025 are left blank. See the BLS notice on the shutdown’s effect on the CPI.

Ranks, real prices and comparisons

Seasonal pattern

For each month from 2015 on we divide the unadjusted index by its centered 12-month moving average, average the result for each calendar month and center the twelve values on zero. Months whose window includes October 2025 are skipped. We compute this ourselves because BLS publishes some footwear series without seasonal adjustment in some years.

Updates and checks

The nightly job requests the most recent years for all series in a single API call (six years in February and March, when BLS revises seasonally adjusted data). It refuses to publish if a core series is missing, too short or more than four months old, and keeps the previous data instead. Pages show the date and the latest month they use.

Credit and limits

Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. BLS data are in the public domain. BLS.gov cannot vouch for the data or analyses derived from these data after the data have been retrieved from BLS.gov. Data were retrieved on October 23, 2026. Manshoe is not affiliated with BLS. Our figures are for information and general comparison, not for contracts, legal claims or financial decisions; see the price data disclaimer.

Questions or a number that looks wrong? Contact us.