This probably is a first: low U.S. inflation rates might well be driven in substantial part by new competition in the mobile business.
Nearly half of the decline in core consumer price index inflation in 2017 can be traced to a single item: mobile services, according to Paul Ashworth, Capital Economics chief economist.
Mobile service plan prices dropped seven percent in March 2017 and fell an additional 1.7 percent in April 2017, according to Labor Department data.
From April 2016, mobile service prices were down 12.9 percent the largest decline in 16 years.
Core inflation—prices excluding the volatile categories of food and energy—rose just 1.9 percent in April 2017 from a year earlier, decelerating from 2.3 percent growth in January 2017, as measured by the U.S. Labor Department’s consumer-price index.
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