Washington - Consumer prices fell in December in the United States by a seasonally adjusted 0.4% as the falling oil price continued to send the cost of petrol plummeting, the US Bureau of Labour Statistics said on Friday.
Energy commodities including petrol posted their steepest one-month decline since 2008 and were off more than 4 per cent in December, on top of significant declines in previous months, the bureau said.
Petrol prices alone fell more than 9%.
Excluding volatile food and energy costs, inflation remained unchanged for the month.
For the last 12 months, the government's benchmark inflation gauge, the Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers, is up 0.8%.