WASHINGTON – Rising food costs and higher rents offset a drop in gas prices last month, leaving consumer prices only slightly higher in October compared with the previous month.

The consumer price index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.1 percent in October, down from sharp gains of 0.6 percent in the previous two months, the Labor Department said Thursday. In the past year, prices increased 2.2 percent. That's just above the Federal Reserve's inflation target of 2 percent.

The cost of shelter, which includes rents, rose 0.3 percent, the most in more than four years. Clothes and airline fares also rose, while the price of new and used cars fell.