Compared to the same month a year ago, consumer prices in January were up by 1.4 percent, unchanged from the annual growth seen in December. "Looking ahead, inflation is poised to rise above 2% in the spring, but this will be driven largely by easy base effects and should be transitory," said Kathy Bostjancic, Chief U.S. Financial Economist at Oxford Economics. Next Wednesday, the Labor Department is scheduled to release a separate report on producer price inflation in the month of January.