I’m not sure why housing and fuel were juxtaposed; most “core” inflation indexes I’m familiar with remove fuel and FOOD, because the short term volatility for those two are very high.

[A national estimate of] housing generally is included.

I don’t agree with the root poster of this thread, though, because real wages are generally indexed to national consumption, whereas housing specifically (and to a lesser extent, food and services) are local markets, so you can have real wage growth but if you live in a high COL area, you really do have to look at real income and deflate (slightly! People often do COL deflation on gross salary, which is silly) for COL.

There are various ways to do inflation, most governments release a variety of measures.

Fuel is not included sometimes because of it's inherent volatility, it jams the numbers up and does not give a clear picture.

Housing - I think they might include rent but not mortgages as the later reflects consumption over times other than for when inflation is calculated.

to make the number smaller, so they can pay you less