The third straight month of readings well above the Fed’s target provides concerning evidence that inflation is stuck at an elevated level.
WASHINGTON — Consumer inflation remained persistently high last month, boosted by gas, rents, auto insurance and other items, the government said Wednesday in a report that will likely give pause to the Federal Reserve as it weighs when and by how much to cut interest rates this year.Prices outside the volatile food and energy categories rose 0.4% from February to March, the same accelerated pace as in the previous month. Measured from a year earlier, these core prices were up 3.
The March inflation report “pours cold water on the view that the faster readings in January and February simply represented the start of new-year price increases that were not likely to persist,” Kathy Bostjancic, chief economist at Nationwide, said in a research note.
Overall consumer prices rose 0.4% from February to March, the same as in the previous month. Compared with 12 months earlier, prices rose 3.5%, up from a year-over-year figure of 3.2% in February. The inflation surge that followed the pandemic jacked up the costs of food, gas, rent and many other items. Though inflation has since plummeted from its peak of 9.1% in June 2022, average prices are still well above where they were before the pandemic.
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