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The 1989 price increase largest in eight years
Robert A. Kuemmerling and Craig Howell
Increases in the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers and the Producer Price Index for Finished Goods were marginally larger in 1989 than in 1988, reflecting an acceleration of energy prices. The sharp advances in energy and food prices that occurred during the first 5 months of the year, however, were not sustained during the remaining months of 1989. Nevertheless, the 1989 advances in the CPI and PPI were the largest annual changes since 1981.
Consumer prices
For the 12-month period ended December 1989, the CPI rose 4.6 percent. This
compares with increases of 4.4 percent in both 1987 and 1988 and was the largest annual
change since an 8.9-percent rise in 1981. While advances in the food, shelter, and energy
components were each larger than in 1988, the slight acceleration in the CPI was
principally because of the sharp increases in petroleum-based energy items during the
first half of 1989. Food prices rose notably more in the first half, registering their
largest increase since 1980. The index for all items except food, shelter, and energy — up
4.1 percent in and 1989 — rose less than in 1988, as prices of other commodities
registered their smallest increase in 3 years. In particular, apparel prices increased
only 0.7 percent in 1989, after rising 4.8 percent in 1988. Prices for other services
moved up about the same as in 1988. An 8.4-percent increase in medical care services
accounted for about one-third of the rise. The rates for these groups during the past 10
years are shown in table 1.
This excerpt is from an article published in the May 1990 issue of the Monthly Labor Review. The full text of the article is available in Adobe Acrobat's Portable Document Format (PDF). See How to view a PDF file for more information.
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Producer price highlights, 1996.—July 1997.
Consumer prices for energy and food accelerated in 1996.—Apr. 1997.
Consumer prices in 1994.—June 1995.
Growth rate slows down in consumer prices, 1993.
—May 1994.Recession, energy prices ease producer price inflation, 1991.—May 1992.
Consumer price slows in first half of 1991.—Oct. 1991.
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