The Labor Department reported that overall consumer prices were unchanged in December for the second month in a row as falling energy costs offset price increases elsewhere and, for the entire year of 2011, inflation came in at 3.0 percent.

Gasoline prices that fell 2.0 percent from November to December combined with household energy costs that were down 0.4 percent to push the energy index 1.3 percent lower, however, energy prices remain up 6.6 percent from a year ago with many analysts now predicting a sharp increase in pump prices this spring.

Food & beverage prices rose 0.2 percent last month and were up 4.5 percent for all of 2011 while apparel prices declined 0.1 percent in December but gained 4.5 percent for the year in a report that was almost a carbon copy of the November data released a month ago.

In a separate report from the Labor Department, jobless claims plunged from an upwardly revised, seasonally adjusted 402,000 to 352,000 for the week ending January 14th, the lowest level since April 2008.

Claims for six states were estimated due to the Martin Luther King holiday and seasonal factors  are having an outsized impact on the data at this time of the year as unadjusted, holiday-related cutbacks came in at 521,613.

But, looking at the four-week moving average, the trend remains down, this smoother gauge of jobless claims falling from 382,500 to 379,000 last week, up from 374,000 at the end of last year.