US consumer prices plunged a record 1% in October amid an accelerating global financial crisis, government data show today.
The decline in the Labor Department's consumer price index was the steepest since the department launched the indicator in February 1947 and exceeded analysts' consensus forecast of a 0.8% fall. The prior record was a 0.9% decline in July 1949.
The core consumer price index, excluding food and energy prices, slipped 0.1%.
On a 12-month basis, headline inflation fell to 3.7% from a 4.9% annual rate in September.
Energy prices fell 8.6% in October, the steepest monthly decline since the figure was established in 1957, after a decline of 1.9% in September. On a 12-month basis, energy prices were up 11.5% in October, compared with 23.1% the prior month.
Petrol prices also fell at an all-time rate, down 14.2% from September. That factored into a 5.4% decline in transportation prices, the biggest since 1947.
But food prices continued to climb, up 0.3% in October following a gain of 0.6% in September, pushing the annual rate to 6.1%.
Separate figures showed that construction starts on new US homes fell to a record low in October, as did new applications for building permits. The figures signalled that the US housing downturn may extend well into the future.
The Commerce Department said housing starts fell 4.5% to a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 791,000 units from September's 828,000 units. New applications for building permits, which give a sense of future home construction, plummeted 12% to 708,000 from 805,000 in September.
