The smallest rise in consumer prices in eight months was achieved this July while there was a large drop in gasoline costs and core inflation has increased just slightly, experts say. Consumer prices had been soaring earlier this year but have made advances slowly this past month, making it the smallest advance since prices were flat last November, the Labor Department reported Wednesday. Core inflation increased by just 0.2 percent, at the same rate as it did in June. With the exclusion of food and energy, the inflation is up 2.3 percent this year, in comparison to the 2.6 increase in prices in 2006. The rise of consumer prices at a seasonally adjusted annual rate of 4.5 percent so far this year, up from a 2.5 percent increase in prices for all of 2006 is concentrated more on energy and less on food prices. This could be attributed to the growing demand for corn to produce ethanol, the Consumer Price Index reports. Energy prices rose 2.9 percent for all of 2006 and have been at an annual rate of 21.3 percent through the first seven months of this year. However, “those sharp increases so far have not caused more widespread inflation troubles,” experts say.
