Official figures show that US consumer prices plunged by a record 1.7% in November from October, led by falling energy prices.
The Labor Department said the drop followed a 1% fall in October - representing the first back-to-back record drops since the department started keeping monthly data in 1947.
Core prices that exclude food and energy items were flat in November after declining 0.1% in October. The drop in overall prices exceeded forecasts by Wall Street economists who had expected a 1.2% decline.
The annual rate of inflation in November was 1.1%, the lowest since mid-2002. Energy prices plummeted 17% last month, double the 8.6% fall in October. It was the largest monthly decrease in energy prices since records began.
Food prices in November were up a relatively slight 0.2% after a 0.3% October rise. It was the smallest monthly gain in food costs since March.
Meanwhile, US housing starts tumbled 18.9% in November from a month earlier to a new record low. The figure is down 47% from last year's level, official data show today.
The Commerce Department estimated November housing starts at an adjusted annual rate of 625,000, compared with a level of 1,179,000 in November 2007, in a further sign of retrenchment in the property market.
The figures showed a steep drop from the October level, which had been the lowest level since the Commerce Department began publishing the data in January 1959. The figure was weaker than Wall Street estimates of 730,000 new starts.
The agency also revised down its estimate for October by 20,000 to 771,000.
