Food away from home rose 0.2 percent and alcoholic beverage prices declined 0.2 percent. Over the year, food and beverage prices were up 3.1 percent as food at home rose 3.1 percent and food away from home rose 3.0 percent. Alcoholic beverage prices rose 2.5 percent over the year. Apparel prices rose 1.7 percent in March, following a 2.3 percent increase in February. Even including the increase in February and March, apparel prices were 1.8 percent lower than they were one year ago.
Apparel is the only major expenditure category to experience a price decrease over the year.
The 'North Central' region has been renamed the 'Midwest' region by the Census Bureau. It is composed of the same geographic entities. This index series was calculated using a Laspeyres estimator. All other item stratum index series converted to a geometric means estimator in January, 1999. 5 Special index based on a substantially smaller sample.