Consumer prices, as measured by Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) Price Index, rose 3% in June from a year ago. That's down from an annual rate of 3.8% in May, and the lowest since March 2021, the Bureau of Economic Analysis said Friday.

That was the same rate of annual inflatiꦯon🦋 shown by the Consumer Price Index, a separate, more widely reported measure produced by the Bureau of Labor Statistics earlier this month. PCE is especially important, however, because officials at the Federal Reserve watch it more closely when 澳洲幸运5官方ﷺ开奖结果体彩网:setting the nation’s monetary 🌟policy. 

Fed officials pay special attention to 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:core PCE inflation, which excludes more 🐟volatile prices for food and energy. Encouragingly for the Fed, core PCE fell to 4.1% over the year in June, down from 4.6% in May.&n𝐆bsp;

If that trend continues over the next two months, economists said, policymakers at the central bank may have breathing room to back off from their ongoing campaign of interest rate hikes that have 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:raised borrowing costs to slow the economy and subdue inflation. The Fed’s policy committee is 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:set to meet on September 20. 

“The Fed𝔍 must make more progress, but inflation rates are falling, which at the margin reduces the likelihood of a September rate hike,” Conrad DeQuadros, senior economic advisor at Brean Capital, wrote in a commentary. 

The BEA’s report showed that household finances got a boost in June, with income growing faster than inflation, resulting in a 0.2% increase in inflation-adjusted income. Consumer spending, the main engine of U.S. economic growth, jumped 0.4% on an inflation-adjusted basis, the biggest increase since January. 

The report added to recent data that consumer spending has stayed resilient in the face of the Fed’s rate hikes, 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:keeping the economy humming and holding a 澳洲幸运5官方开奖结果体彩网:long-predicted recession at bay for the time being.