Consumer prices held steady in October, defying analysts’ expectations for a drop due to falling energy costs.
The Consumer Price Index was unchanged for the month, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday, when the numbers were adjusted for seasonal variation.
Annual inflation was unchanged at 1.7 percent. Inflation had been running hotter through the late spring, hitting 2.1 percent in June, before slowing.
Gas prices were down 3 percent in October and have fallen 5 percent in the past 12 months, a drop mirrored in other forms of energy as well.
But those lower prices were offset by broad-based rising prices elsewhere, including rents, plane tickets, home goods, medical care, recreation, personal care, tobacco and new vehicles.
Overall, core inflation, a measure of price changes that strips out food and energy costs, was up 1.8 percent year-over-year. That was a slight increase from 1.7 percent in September.
While the headline consumer prices are the ones experienced by families in their normal daily business, Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen and other Federal Reserve officials view core inflation as a less volatile gauge of where inflation is headed over the medium term.
Minutes from the September meeting of the Fed’s monetary policy team released Wednesday indicated that officials expect energy prices to moderate inflation in the short-term, but for the ongoing economic recovery to put upward pressure on prices in the medium term and bring inflation closer to their 2 percent goal.
