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Timothy Fadek | Bloomberg | Getty Images
An employee arranges the sale of a fan at a Walmart store in Secaucus, New Jersey.
Excluding volatile food and energy components, the CPI rose 0.1%, matching February's gain. In the last 12 months of March, the core CPI rose 2.0%, the smallest increase since February 2018. The core CPI rose 2.1% from a year earlier. one year to another in February.
The Fed, which aims for inflation of 2%, uses a different measure, the main price index of personal consumption expenditure (PCE), for monetary policy. The base price index PCE rose 1.8% year-on-year in January, after rising 2.0% in December. It reached the 2% inflation target set by the Fed last March for the first time since April 2012.
February and March data on ECP prices will be released on April 29. February data was delayed by a 35-day partial closure of the federal government that ended on January 25. Energy prices jumped 3.5% in March, representing around 60%. of the CPI last month, after rising 0.4% in February. Gasoline prices jumped 6.5% after rising 1.5% in February.
Food prices rose 0.3% after a 0.4% gain in February. Food consumed at home increased 0.4%. Consumers also paid more for rent. The rent equivalent to the home of the owners' main home, which is what an owner would pay to rent or receive from a rental home, rose 0.3% in March after a similar gain in February.
Health care costs rebounded 0.3% after declining 0.2% in February. Clothing prices fell 1.9%, the largest decline since January 1949, after two consecutive monthly increases. Prices for motor vehicles and used trucks, air fares and auto insurance also declined.
The cost of new vehicles, however, rebounded 0.4% after a drop of 0.2% in February.
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