WASHINGTON – The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) last month rose 0.2 percent to 202.4 (1982 = 100), 2.1 percent above its year-ago level, the U.S. Department of Labor’s Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today.
The core rate excluding food and energy rose 0.3 percent in January, to 2.7 percent above its year-ago level, after gaining only 0.1 percent in December. The full CPI-U had advanced 0.4 percent in December after holding steady in November.
“This is kind of a wake-up call to the market,” Mickey Levy, chief economist at Bank of America Corp. in New York, told Bloomberg News. Inflation “is sticky, so it’s still on the front burner … for the Fed.”
Treasury notes fell this morning, as the report made future Fed rate cuts less likely. The yield on the benchmark 10-year note – which rises as the price declines – rose 4 basis points to 4.71 percent at 9:20 a.m. in New York.
Additional information is available at www.bls.gov.
