WASHINGTON — Inflation moderated notably in March as falling gas prices helped pave the way for the slowest price increases in almost two years, providing relief for many American consumers and some evidence that the Federal Reserve's campaign to raise interest rates and cool the economy is getting underway.
consumer price index up 5 percent in the year to March, down from 6 percent in February. That marked the slowest pace of price increases since May 2021.
But the details of the report underscore that inflation remains resilient to the subsurface: The so-called core index which aims to gain a clearer understanding of price trends by stripping out food and fuel costs, both of which are volatile, is increasing. by 5.6 percent from the previous year. That was up slightly from February's 5.5 percent increase, and it marked the first acceleration in the annual figure since September.
In total, the new inflation data suggests that price gains have been moderate, but that progress remains gradual. And those mixed signals emerged during a challenging economic moment for the Fed. The central bank is the government's main inflation fighter, and has been trying to rein in rising prices for more than a year, raising interest rates to nearly 5 percent from near zero as recently as March 2022 to slow the economy and burden the economy. lower costs.
Officials are now assessing how their policy changes are working, and they are trying to gauge whether they need to do more to ensure that price increases will be fully contained. Inflation has slowed after reaching its peak about 9 percent last summer, but the process is slow. Still a long way from the 2 percent inflation that was normal before the start of the pandemic in 2020.
Uncertainty about how quickly and completely the price increase will abate has been exacerbated by recent developments. A series of high-profile bank booms last month could hold the economy in check – perhaps enough to even plunge it into a mild recession later this year, according to Fed staff forecasts. Several Fed officials urged caution given the turmoil, even as others warned that the central bank must keep the brakes on the economy and stay focused on its fight against rising prices.
The new data may “strengthen the case for the Fed to hike again in May, and proceed with caution from here,” said Blerina Uruci, chief US economist at T. Rowe Price. He said the new report offered good news, but “it will take time for inflation to come down.”
The Fed's official inflation target of 2 percent was determined using a different index: the Personal Consumption Expenditure measure, which uses some data from the consumer price measure but is calculated differently and released a few weeks later. That size too sharply raisedalthough it also moderates.
The White House welcomed the latest inflation news on Wednesday, stressing that slower price increases mean more “breathing room” for families.
“Today's report demonstrates continued progress in our fight against inflation,” President Biden said in a written statement.
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What is inflation? Inflation is the loss of purchasing power over time, meaning your dollar won't go as far tomorrow as it did today. This is usually expressed as the annual change in prices for everyday goods and services such as food, furniture, apparel, transportation, and toys.
As financial markets settled following the release of the data, both stocks and bonds showed little change, suggesting investors saw the numbers in line with the current economic outlook.
But the report also marks a less optimistic milestone: Inflation has been high in America for two full years now, after starting to pick up in March 2021.
The surge in the price of goods initially pushed inflation higher that year, although that has faded as supply chains have recovered and product shortages have been resolved. Similarly, sharp increases in food and fuel prices associated with Russia's invasion of Ukraine in 2022 accelerated inflation but have now reversed. Today, most of the national inflation comes from service fees, which cover purchases such as rent, hotel rooms, manicures, insurance, and child care.
With that in mind, the Fed is watching service costs closely to see if price hikes are poised to roll back – and they eased somewhat in March. A measure of services, excluding housing and fuel-related prices, produced by Bloomberg showed a decline to 5.7 percent on an annual basis in March, which was a strong reading but less fast than February's 6.1 percent.
“There are signs in the details to suggest that we are making some progress towards slowing inflation,” said Ms. Uruci. “It's not where it should be, but it's progress.”
In a development that has caught the attention of many economists, the prime residential lease up 0.5 percent from the previous month, down from 0.8 percent in the previous reading. Housing inflation is widely expected to slow in 2023, and appears to be picking up even earlier than many expected.
“When you see shelters moderating like that, it's an unusual thing,” said Neil Dutta, head of economic research at Renaissance Macro. “The moderation in rent inflation is coming a bit quicker than expected.”
But these hopeful signs do not necessarily mean that inflation will fade smoothly and quickly. Last month's sharp slowdown in the overall index may not last, as a large part of that decline was due to falling gas prices that were impossible to sustain. Real time pump price tracker manufactured by AAA shows that unleaded gas prices have been rising since last month.
And the inflation report continues to show rapid price increases in other categories, including new vehicles and airfare.
Given how difficult price increases have proved, some central bankers have suggested that they may need to raise interest rates further to fully bring inflation down.
the Fed latest estimate, released shortly after the March collapses of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, suggested that officials could raise interest rates another quarter point this year, to a little over 5 percent. The central bank will announce its next policy decision on May 3.
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But the minutes from that meeting – released Wednesday – indicate that officials are keen to keep their options open regarding future rate hikes. They thought the bank boom was a major wild card in the economic outlook, and Fed staff members projected that the US economy would likely enter a “mild” recession later this year after the turmoil.
Central bankers have continued to sound undecided about a rate hike path since then.
On Tuesday, John C. Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, said the Fed had more work to do to temper rising prices and suggested that the central bank's March forecast for one more quarter-point rate move was still A.”reasonable starting place.”
But Austan D. Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, stated hours later that recent bank failures could make it harder to access credit for businesses and consumers, slow the economy, fuel uncertainty, and create a “need to be careful.”
“We have to collect more data and be careful about raising rates too aggressively until we see how much work the headwinds are doing for us in bringing inflation down,” said Mr. Goolsbee.
And Mary C. Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, suggested Wednesday that further interest rate moves may or may not be necessary.
“Looking ahead, there are good reasons to think that policy may have to be tightened more to bring inflation down,” he said, speaking at an event in Salt Lake City, Utah. “But there are also good reasons to think the economy will continue to slow, even without additional policy adjustments.”
Higher interest rates make it much more expensive to borrow money to buy a house or expand a business. It slows down economic activity. As demand cools, the labor market weakens.
Recent job market data shows just that fewer open positions are waiting to be filled, and job growth has remained solid but slowed in March. And as employers prove less desperate to recruit, wage increases are starting to return to a more normal pace.
That could help pave the way for inflation to cool, many economists think. When wages rise rapidly, employers may charge consumers more to try to cover their increased labor costs, and those customers are more likely to be able to pay higher prices. But as households become more tied up, it can become more difficult for businesses to raise prices without scaring off buyers.
Mr Dutta expects the Fed to pause in May on the incoming data, although most investors are pricing in interest rate moves. And in any case, he said that the central bank's end goal—to slow down the economy slowly, cooling inflation without causing a major recession in what's called a soft landing—seems more likely.
“On the margins, the inflation data is encouraging,” he said. “When I take the totality of all the data that's coming out, my own view is that you can bring a soft landing story to life.”
Joe Rennison contributed reporting.