Consumer prices overall rarely decline from year to year, according to data
from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS), but retail price trends were
anything but normal in 2009. In fact, the average Consumer Price Index for All
Items in 2009 declined 0.31 percent, the first year-to-year decline since 1955.
While watchers of economic news are likely familiar with the overall CPI,
consumer price indices are published by BLS for a number of product categories.
The CPI-All Food, for example, increased only 0.89 percent on average in 2009,
far below the annual average change of 3.66 percent since 1950; the annual
average CPI-All Food has not seen a year-to-year decline since 1959. Then there
is the CPI-Food At Home, which grew by only 0.46 percent in 2009 (compared to an
average increase of 3.52 percent since 1950) and has not seen a year-to-year
decline since 1967.
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