U.S. consumer inflation eased in June from the previous month, with a drop in gasoline prices identified as a contributing factor, official data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed on Tuesday.
Headline CPI fell 0.4% month-on-month in June, marking the largest one-month decline since April 2020. That decline contrasted with economists' consensus expectations, which had forecast a 0.1% month-on-month decrease in the headline Consumer Price Index.
Core CPI - the measure that removes the often-volatile food and energy components - registered no change in June after increasing 0.2% month-on-month in May. Economists had expected core inflation to rise 0.3% for the month.
Measured on a year-over-year basis, headline CPI increased 3.5% in June while core CPI rose 2.6%. Both annual measures came in below economists' estimates of 3.8% for headline CPI and 2.9% for core CPI, and both represent a deceleration from May readings.
The Bureau of Labor Statistics noted a fall in gasoline prices as among the factors helping to pull headline inflation lower. Beyond that detail, the data release provides the month-to-month and year-over-year readings without additional causal breakdowns in this release.
Brief analysis
The June release shows a notable monthly downshift in headline inflation accompanied by a pause in core inflation growth. The divergence between the headline decline and the flat core reading highlights the role of energy price movements in near-term headline fluctuations, while core measures remain more stable on a monthly basis.
This is a developing story; the Bureau of Labor Statistics' data are the basis for these figures. No revisions or additional detail beyond the published month-on-month and year-over-year figures are provided here.