By Jeffry Bartash
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - U.S. consumer prices declined a seasonally adjusted 0.3% in November, mainly because of falling gasoline costs. So-called core prices, which exclude the volatile food and energy categories, rose 0.1%, the Labor Department said Friday. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast a 0.2% decrease in the main CPI and a 0.2% advance in the core rate. The energy index dropped 4.1% while food prices rose 0.2%. Consumer prices have risen an unadjusted 1.8% over the past 12 months, or by a similar 1.9% on a core basis. That's within the Federal Reserve's inflation target. Real or inflation-adjusted hourly wages, meanwhile, jumped 0.5% last month to post the biggest increase in four years. Yet real wages are flat over the past 12 months, meaning the average worker has seen no increase in his purchasing power.
