Inflation is continuing to cool down, though you might not think it from the 12-month inflation rate.🔯

Consumer prices rose 3.2% in the 12 months through July, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said Thursday. That’s an uptick from the 3% year-over-year increase in the Consumer Price Index the month prior. Core inflation, which excludes prices for food and energy that tend to seesaw from month to month, and which economists view as a more reliable indicator of future inflation, fell to a 4.7% year-over-year change from 4.8% in June.

The uptick in the headline inflation rate, the first time it’s accelerated since June 2022, was widely expected by economis꧒ts and reflected “base effects”— the fact that 🎃price increases in July 2022 weren’t quite as steep as the huge spike in prices seen in June 2022, making the 12-month comparison a little less favorable in July than if prices a year ago had been steady.

Looking beyond the base e📖ffects, the details of the report showed consumer price increases continuing their year-long trend of diminishing. Overall inflation and core inflation both rose 0.2% in July from June, the same monthly increase as in the month prior.

Indeed, if prices rose at the same rate all year as they have over the last three months, yearly inflation would be just 1.9%—hitting the 2% goal that the Federal Reserve targets as a rate consistent witಞh a healthy economy when setting the nation’s monetary policy, Sal Guatieri a senior economist at BMO Capital Markets, calculated.

“The pieces of the US disinflation puzzle are starting to come together,” Ali Jaff🐽ery, an economist at CIBC, said in a commentary.

Prices for some key items actually fell from June, with used car prices declining 1.3%, airline tickets falling 8.1%, and medical care falling 0.4%.

Inflation remained stubborn for housing, which rose 0.4%, and car insurance, which rose 2% over the month, making for a 17.8% yearly increase.