The price of goods and services remains elevated around the U.S., as evidenced by four recent reports by the U.S. government. They all showed that inflation remains well above the Fed's target of 2%, making it harder for the nation's central bank to transition from monetary tightening to monetary easing.
A Federal Reserve Bank of New York report released on Feb. 12 showed that consumer expectations for inflation for the year ahead remained steady at 3%.
Another report published by the Bureau of U.S. Labor Statistics (BLS) on Feb. 13 showed that the Consumer Price Index (CPI), a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services, rose at an annual rate of 3.1% in January 2024 -- down from up from 3.4% in December, but ahead of market expectations of 2.9%. In addition, core CPI, which excludes food and energy from the consumer basket, came at 3.9%. It is unchanged from the previous month, but it, too, exceeded market forecasts.
