NATION AND WORLD
University Daily Kansan, April 25, 1984
Page 12
Consumer prices up 0.2% in March
By United Press International
WASHINGTON — Consumer prices climbed just 0.2 percent in March, with a decline in food costs nearly offsetting a strong increase in transportation costs, the Labor Department said yesterday.
The March increase in the Consumer Price Index would amount to an annual inflation rate of only 2.8 percent if figured on a yearly basis.
It has been a year since there was a better month for inflation — March 1983's 0.1 percent increase. The 0.2 percent rise equaled that of December and June. The rise in the Consumer Price Index among analysts expected, raising new questions about why only interest rates continue to buck a moderating trend.
SOCIAL, SECURITY RECIPIENTS,
in 20 years would learn the size of
a terrorist attack.
along with the March inflation rate, will have to wait until the end of the third quarter this time. The change is part of the efforts to fund a new financial health into the system
Prices had risen 0.6 percent in January and 0.4 percent in February. A number of analysts had correctly predicted that sharply higher food prices early this year would be only temporary.
Food costs dropped 0.1 percent for the month, the result of a wide-ranging improvement for categories that had been pushed up earlier by the effects of bad weather — mainly last summer's drought and December's freeze.
Grocery prices were down 0.3 percent, a sharp turnaround from the 2.4 percent increase in January and the 0.9 percent climb in February.
when other foods leveled out went down in price by 0.4 percent in March.
Vegetable prices went up only 0.1 percent following seven months in
Beef prices dropped 0.5 percent.
Even pork prices, which analysts said
were down, are up.
Egg prices tumbled 12.1 percent, the most since April 1970.
THE DECLINE in food prices was the first since July. Another factor holding down the increase in prices was a 4.3 percent reduction in fuel oil prices.
But gasoline prices, after seasonal adjustment, went up 1 percent. Gasoline prices actually fell 0.1 percent but should have fallen more at this time of year, according to the adjustment process. Gasoline is still 12.4 percent cheaper than at its last peak three years ago.
New car prices were up 0.5 percent, and used car prices increased a very strong 2.4 percent. Together with the gasoline figure, overall transportation costs are an especially big increase after February 8 lack of change in that category.
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