November 19, 2009 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)

CPI in October 2009

The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) decreased 0.2 percent over the 12 months ending in October, on a not seasonally adjusted basis.

Percent change for 12 months ended October 2009, Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, not seasonally adjusted
[Chart data]

Over the past 12 months, the energy index has fallen 14.0 percent with the gasoline index declining 17.9 percent. Over the same period, the food index has declined 0.6 percent with the food at home index down 2.8 percent.

In contrast to these decreases, the all items less food and energy index increased 1.7 percent in the 12 months ending in October 2009. Contributing to the increase were advances in the new vehicles, transportation services, and medical care services indexes.

These data are from the BLS Consumer Price Index program. To learn more, see "Consumer Price Index — October 2009" (HTML) (PDF), news release USDL 09-1401.

 

Of interest

Spotlight on Statistics: The Recession of 2007–2009

The most recent recession in the United States began in December 2007 and ended in June 2009, though many of the statistics that describe the U.S. economy have yet to return to their pre-recession values. In this Spotlight, we present BLS data that compare the recent recession to previous recessions. Read more »