Fed’s preferred inflation gauge rose 2.8% in March

The Federal Reserve’s preferred measure of inflation showed prices once again rose at an unexpectedly brisk rate in March, marking another setback for rate-cut timing.

The core Personal Consumption Expenditures Price Index rose 0.3% in March from the previous month and 2.8% year-over-year, according to the latest Bureau of Economic Analysis data released Friday.

The core figure, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, was above the 2.6% figure economists at FactSet were expecting, and held steady with the 2.8% advance that took place in February.

Headline PCE, which factors in food and energy, also rose 0.3% last month, or 2.7% on an annualized basis — again above expectations of 2.6%.

Historically, a strong job market keeps wages and consumer spending levels elevated, thus fanning inflation and interest rates, which Wall Street is widely expecting Fed officials to slash three times — by a cumulative 0.75 percentage points — by the end of the year.

The economic data comes just one day after the Commerce Department reported that the US economy grew at its slowest pace in two years in the first quarter.

Gross domestic product (GDP) grew at an annualized pace of 1.6% during the three-month period ended in March — below the 2.4% projected by economists polled by The Wall Street Journal.

More troubling was that prices have remained sticky, according to Friday’s PCE reading.

The closely watched figure remains far from the Fed’s 2% target, which the US economy has not seen in more than a decade.

Policymakers have struggled to edge closer to their lofty goal in the face of stubbornly high inflation and a surprisingly resilient labor market.

The latest jobs report in March, for example, blew past economist expectations and said employers increased their payrolls by a staggering 303,000 last month.

Yet again, the data point did not serve well for rate-cut timing as historically, a strong job market keeps wages and consumer spending levels elevated, thus fanning inflation and interest rates.

Employers are also paying higher wages because of new minimum wage laws similar to the one that went into effect in California this month — while jacked-up prices for food, gas, rent and many other items have remained elevated since the surge that followed the pandemic.

Consensus among traders is that the Fed will now hold off until September before it slashes rates from their current 23-year-high, between 5.25% and 5.5%.

They are also predicting there will be two cuts of 25 basis points instead of the three that had been projected this year, totaling 75 basis points.

The stubborn inflation complicates President Joe Biden’s claims to be making steady progress against higher prices. Biden had previously suggested that lower inflation would lead the Fed to cut rates, but he hedged that prediction earlier this month.

Biden also attempted to spin the GDP data in his favor on Thursday, touting that “the economy has grown more since I took office than at this point in any presidential term in the last 25 years.”

However, US debt has soared to $33 trillion since the 81-year-old commander-in-chief took office, the highest ever.

The debt-to-GDP ratio now tops 100% — at 123%, per the International Monetary Fund, which projects the ratio to reach 130% by 2035.