One word came to mind when the April Consumer Price Index was released yesterday: baffling.

It showed a modest, 0.2 percent increase over March’s inflation rate, which seemed remarkable given the recent large hikes in food and energy prices.

How did it happen? A closer look at the numbers and the government’s rationale reveals that it really didn’t.

Food prices were indeed up quite a bit last month: 0.9 percent, the highest in any month since 1990. As for gasoline prices, they also went up a lot, 5.6 percent. But — here’s the kicker — the Labor Department recorded this increase as a 0.2 percent drop because of “seasonal demand fluctuations.” That means more people drive when spring arrives, so it’s a given that gas prices will rise. But because, according to the government, they actually rose less than expected, it gets counted as a drop.

That’s baloney, of course. Consumers’ paychecks aren’t “seasonally adjusted.” When they fill up their tanks, and gas costs 20 cents more a gallon than it did a month ago, all they know is that there’s less money in their pockets when they’re finished. That’s how most consumers measure the cost of living.

The government likes to fiddle with the Consumer Price Index formula so as to understate the inflation rate. That saves it money when it’s time to give raises to Social Security recipients and others whose payments are indexed to inflation. But things like airplane tickets, hotel rooms and cars are not purchased nearly as often as food and gas (which, respectively, have risen 5.1 percent and 20.9 percent in the last year).

Thus it’s clear, when the government says inflation is rising at a rate of only 3 percent this year (after 4 percent last year), we’re not really getting an accurate picture.