Consumer Prices Rise in January
Consumer prices increased in January, the Labor Department reported Feb. 20.
The consumer price index, a key measure of inflation, increased 0.1% in January after a 0.2% rise the prior month which had been the largest gain since July, Labor said.
Economists’ median forecast matched the rise in the consumer price index, Bloomberg News reported.
Consumer prices rose 1.6% from a year earlier, and the core CPI, which excludes fuel and food, increased 0.1%.
Limited inflation has given Federal Reserve policymakers the flexibility to keep borrowing costs low to stimulate the economy, Bloomberg reported.
“There are certainly no inflation pressures in the economy,” Julia Coronado, chief economist for North America at BNP Paribas in New York, told Bloomberg. “There doesn’t seem to be any need to tighten policy anytime soon.”
The CPI is the broadest of the price gauges from the Labor Department because it includes goods and services.
