March 21, 2011 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Consumer prices in February 2011
Over the last 12 months, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) increased 2.1 percent before seasonal adjustment.
[Chart data]
The 11.0-percent February 2010 to February 2011 increase in the energy index is the largest since May 2010. The index for gasoline, a subset of the energy index, has risen 19.2 percent during that time.
The 2.3-percent rise in the food index is the largest since May 2009. Over the past 12 months, the index for food at home has risen 2.8 percent while the food away from home index has risen 1.6 percent.
The 12-month increase in the index for all items less food and energy reached 1.1 percent in February after being as low as 0.6 percent in October 2010. The indexes for airline fares, medical care, new vehicles, and used cars and trucks were among the indexes that increased over that span; indexes that declined include household furnishings and operations, apparel, and recreation.
These data are from the BLS Consumer Price Index program. To learn more, see "Consumer Price Index — February 2011" (HTML) (PDF), USDL-11-0350.
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