By Jeffry Bartash
WASHINGTON (MarketWatch) - U.S. consumer prices were flat overall in January, as seasonally adjusted declines in food and energy offset increases in the cost of housing, clothes, airline fares and medical care. The consumer price index was unchanged for the second month in a row, the Labor Department said Thursday, as the food index held steady for the first time in four months and the energy index dropped 1.7%. Yet so-called core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy costs, climbed 0.3%. Economists surveyed by MarketWatch had forecast a 0.1% increase in the main CPI and a 0.2% gain in the core rate. Consumer prices have risen an unadjusted 1.6% over the past 12 months, or by 1.9% on a core basis - both well within the range of the Federal Reserve's 2.0% to 2.5% inflation target. Real or inflation-adjusted hourly wages, meanwhile, advanced by 0.2% in January to $10.29. Real wages are up 0.6% over the past 12 months.
