Federal reserve shows inflation picked up since last month
WASHINGTON — An inflation gauge favored by the Federal Reserve increased in January, the latest sign that the slowdown in U.S. consumer price increases is occurring unevenly from month to month.
The government reported Thursday that prices rose 0.3 percent from December to January, up from 0.1 percent in the previous month. But in a more encouraging sign, prices were up just 2.4 percent from a year earlier, down from a 2.6 percent annual pace in December and the smallest such increase in nearly three years.
The year-over-year cooldown in inflation is sure to be welcomed by the White House as President Joe Biden seeks re-election. Still, even though average paychecks have outpaced inflation over the past year, many Americans remain frustrated that overall prices are still well above where they were before inflation erupted three years ago. That sentiment, evident in many public opinion polls, could pose a threat to Biden’s re-election bid.
January’s month-tomonth price increase will likely underscore the concern expressed recently by Federal Reserve officials about the risk of cutting interest rates too soon this year. Minutes from the Fed’s most recent meeting in January showed that most of the policymakers were wary of reducing rates prematurely, before inflation had sustainably returned to the Fed’s 2 percent target.
Thursday’s figures “very much explain why they were right to be cautious,” Omair Sharif, founder of Inflation Insights, a consulting firm, said of Fed officials. “They continue to want to get more confidence.”
Excluding volatile food and energy costs, so-called core prices rose 0.4 percent from December to January, up from 0.1 percent in the previous month and the biggest increase in a year. And compared with a year earlier, core prices rose 2.8 percent, barely down from 2.9 percent in December. Economists consider core prices a better gauge of the likely path of future inflation.
Still, January’s jump follows three months of very low readings in core inflation. And in the second half of last year, core prices rose at just a 1.9 percent annual rate.
Fed officials have welcomed the long-term decline in inflation and have continued to signal that they will likely cut their benchmark interest rate multiple times this year. Most economists expect the first reduction to occur in May or June.
One trend that is helping keep a lid on price increases is a growing consumer pushback against still-high prices, particularly for packaged foods, cars and other physical goods. CEOs at a range of companies, from PepsiCo to McDonald’s to General Mills, have said in the past month that their companies are slowing price increases for their products to pre-pandemic levels after steeper price hikes had resulted in lower sales volumes.
The consumer pushback has come from people like Shannon LoConte, who said she stopped buying name-brand potato chips once their price approached $7 a bag. She has also cut back on Vanilla Coke because the only way to obtain it at an affordable price was to buy it in bulk.
“There is a certain point where I had to say enough is enough,” said LoConte, 30, who lives outside Charleston, South Carolina, and works in marketing. “If it’s $7 for this bag of chips and I can go get $7 worth of groceries or go make my own baked potatoes, I’m going to just go do that, instead.”
Inflation, as measured by the Fed’s preferred gauge, fell last year after having peaked at 7.1 percent in the summer of 2022. Supply chain snarls have eased, reducing costs of parts and raw materials, and a steady flow of job seekers has made it easier for employers to limit wage increases, one of the drivers of inflation.