Slowdown eases some pressure on households

WASHINGTON >> Inflation in the United States slowed again last month in the latest sign that price increases are cooling despite the pressures they continue to inflict on American households.

Consumer prices rose 7.1% in November from a year ago, the government said Tuesday. That was down sharply from 7.7% in October and a recent peak of 9.1% in June. It was the fifth straight decline.

Measured from month to month, which gives a more up-to-date snapshot, the consumer price index inched up just 0.1%. And so-called core inflation, which excludes volatile food and energy costs and which the Federal Reserve tracks closely, slowed to 6% compared with a year earlier. From October to November, core prices rose 0.2% — the mildest increase since August 2021.

All told, the latest figures provided the strongest evidence to date that inflation in the United States is steadily slowing from the price acceleration that first struck about 18 months ago and reached a four-decade high earlier this year.

Gas prices have tumbled from their summer peak. The costs of used cars, health care, airline fares and hotel rooms also dropped in November. So did furniture and electricity prices. Housing costs jumped, though much of that data doesn’t yet reflect real-time measures that show declines in home prices and apartment rents.

Grocery prices remain a trouble spot. They surged 0.5% from October to November and are up 12% compared with a year ago.

Those price spikes have left many Americans struggling to afford food. In Phoenix, there are long lines at St. Mary’s Food Bank, which gave away a record 19,000 Thanksgiving meals across Arizona last month.

“They’re eating snacks and granola all day long,” Rosa Davila, an unemployed single mother, said of her three teenagers while waiting in line for a package Tuesday. “The food bank really resolves things for us.”

Alma Quintera, also waiting in her car, said that even with her husband working full time as a house painter, they have to visit the food bank two or three times a month to adequately feed their three school-age children.

“The high prices have really affected us — the rent, the bills and especially the food,” she said.

Jerry Brown, a spokesman for St. Mary’s, said the food bank’s main Phoenix location last week distributed packages to 4,717 families, up 63% from the same week a year ago.

Economists say the latest inflation figures, though, suggest the likelihood of some relief in the coming months.