June 17, 1999 (The Editor’s Desk is updated each business day.)
Consumers pay less for durables
again in 1998
Consumers paid less for durable commodities in 1998 compared
to the previous year. Prices for consumer durables as a whole fell by 0.5 percent from
December 1997 to December 1998.
![Annual change in the Consumer Price Index for commodities, durables, and nondurables, 1997-98](https://webarchive.library.unt.edu/web/20120925102357im_/http://www.bls.gov/opub/ted/images/1999/Jun/wk3/art04.gif)
[Chart data—TXT]
The fall in prices for consumer durables in 1998 was the second consecutive
drop—they had declined by 1.5 percent in the prior year. The 1997 decline was the
first for consumer durables since 1965.
Examples of consumer durables are furniture, televisions, new vehicles, and motor
vehicle parts. Television prices decreased by 4.8 percent last year and prices of motor
vehicle parts fell 0.2 percent. Not all durables shared in the 1998 price drop: Prices of
new vehicles were unchanged and furniture prices were up by 1.4 percent.
These data are produced by the BLS Consumer Price Index
program. More information on consumer price changes can be found in "Consumer inflation remains modest in
1998," Monthly Labor Review, April 1999. Annual percent changes are
December-to-December changes.
Of interest
Spotlight on Statistics: National Hispanic Heritage Month
In this Spotlight, we take a look at the Hispanic labor force—including labor force participation, employment and unemployment, educational attainment, geographic location, country of birth, earnings, consumer expenditures, time use, workplace injuries, and employment projections.
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