WASHINGTON — Consumer inflation stayed constantly high last month, increased by gas, leas, vehicle insurancecoverage and other products, the federalgovernment stated Wednesday in a report that will mostlikely offer stopbriefly to the Federal Reserve as it weighs when and by how much to cut interest rates this year.
Prices exterior the unstable food and energy classifications increased 0.4% from February to March, the verysame spedup speed as in the previous month. Measured from a year earlier, these core rates were up 3.8%, thesame from the year-over-year increase in February. The Fed carefully tracks core rates duetothefactthat they tend to supply a great read of where inflation is headed.
The March figures, the 3rd straight month of inflation readings well above the Fed’s target, offer worrying proof that inflation is stuck at an raised level after having gradually dropped in the 2nd half of2023 The greater inflation steps threaten to torpedo the possibility of numerous interest rate cuts this year. Fed authorities haveactually made clear that with the economy healthy, they’re in no rush to cut their standard rate inspiteof their earlier forecasts that they would lower rates 3 times this year.
The figures will mostlikely dissatisfy the White House as well, with Republican critics of President Joe Biden who have lookedfor to pin the blame for high costs on the president and usage it as a cudgel to thwart his re-election quote. Polls program that regardlessof a healthy task market, a near-record-high stock market and the constant drop in inflation, numerous Americans blame Biden for high rates.
The March inflation report “pours cold water on the view that the muchfaster readings in January and February merely represented the start of new-year cost increases that were not likely to continue,” Kathy Bostjancic, chief financialexpert at Nationwide, stated in a researchstudy note. “The absence of smallamounts in inflation will weaken Fed authorities’ self-confidence that inflation is on a sustainable course back to 2% a