The latest inflation figures aren’t making the Federal Reserve’s job any easier.
Consumer-price growth has been running below the Fed’s 2% target for three years, and June was yet another month of weakness, the Commerce Department said Monday.
The price index for personal-consumption expenditures, the Fed’s preferred inflation measure, rose 0.2% in June from a month earlier, the Commerce Department said. From a year earlier, prices were up just 0.3%.
That’s far below the 2% target that the Fed believes would be indicative of stability and healthy economic growth. Inflation has run below the Fed’s target for 38 consecutive months.
Core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy costs, ticked up 0.1% from a month earlier and 1.3% from a year ago. Economists surveyed by The Wall Street Journal had expected core prices to climb 0.1% in June from a year earlier.
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