Inflation Slowed to 6.5% in December

U.S. inflation slowed to 6.5% in December, marking the sixth straight monthly deceleration since a mid-2022 peak.

The department’s consumer-price index, a closely watched measure of inflation, rose 7.1% in November from a year earlier, it said last month. That marked the fifth straight month of a decline in the annual inflation rate from a 9.1% peak in June. Despite the recent easing of price pressures, the November rate was much faster than the 2.1% average in the three years before the pandemic.

The CPI measures what consumers pay for goods and services. The Labor Department is scheduled to release its December report at 8:30 a.m. ET on Thursday.

Core CPI, which excludes volatile energy and food prices, climbed 6% in November from a year before, easing from a 6.3% gain in October. Many economists see increases in core CPI as a better signal of future inflation than the overall CPI. Core prices increased at a 4.3% annualized rate in the three months ended in November, the slowest pace in more than a year.