Southland Gas Prices Down 11% in Last Year

The greater Los Angeles region, including Orange County, is benefiting from lower prices at the pump, the U.S. Department of Labor reported.

By June, gasoline prices in the area that includes Los Angeles, Orange, Riverside, San Bernardino and Ventura counties had fallen 11% from a year earlier, the agency said.

The decline is the biggest single factor behind slow growth in consumer prices generally, it said. Year-to-date, prices paid by consumers for food, utilities, apparel and other products in the five-county region have increased 0.7%. That compares with a 1.4% gain in the first half of 1996.

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Patrice Apodaca covers economic issues for The Times. She can be reached at (714) 966-5979 and at patrice.apodaca@latimes.com.