Consumer Price Index for April sees Largest Monthly Decline since December 2008

The Consumer Price Index (CPI) declined 0.8 percent in April, “the largest monthly decline since December 2008″.

April’s negative reading was led by gasoline prices decreasing 20.6 percent, while the energy index on a whole fell 10.1 percent.

Meanwhile, food prices rose in April, with prices for “food at home” increasing 2.6 percent; “its largest monthly increase since February 1974.”

CPI is “based on prices of food, clothing, shelter, fuels, transportation, doctors’ and dentists’ services, drugs, and other goods and services”, and is the main measuring tool for inflation. This month’s decline reveals the United State’s largest deflationary period since the Great Recession.