Consumer Prices Plunge 1 Percent in October

WASHINGTON – Consumer prices plunged by the largest amount in the past 61 years in October as gasoline pump prices dropped by a record amount.

The Labor Department reports that consumer prices fell 1 percent last month, the biggest one-month decline on records that go back to February 1947.

The big drop reflected not only a huge fall in gasoline and other energy costs, but widespread declines in other areas. Core consumer prices, which exclude food and energy, fell 0.1 percent last month, the first drop in core prices in more than a quarter-century.