WASHINGTON While the U.S. economy slogged through its deepest tailspin since the Great Depression and Americans slashed spending last year, food prices kept rising sharply for much of 2009, as they have for years.
That trend, coupled with rebounding energy prices, helps explain why many measures of consumer sentiment remain in the dumps even though numerous economic indicators suggest that the recession is ending.
On the face of it, inflation was tame last year. The Consumer Price Index, the broadest measure of changes in consumer prices, fell at an annualized rate in at least eight months in 2009. That hadn’t happened in a single month since 1955, let alone for eight consecutive months.
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