A customer shops at a grocery store in Chicago on Feb. 13, 2024. Annual inflation has eased significantly since two years ago but it has remained stubbornly above 3% this year.
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A customer shops at a grocery store in Chicago on Feb. 13, 2024. Annual inflation has eased significantly since two years ago but it has remained stubbornly above 3% this year.
Scott Olson/Getty Images
Beating inflation is starting to feel a lot like losing weight, at least before the Ozempic era: Losing the first pounds is generally easier — it’s getting rid of the last ones that’s proving hard.
Data released on Wednesday showed consumer prices moving in the wrong direction once again, rising 3.5% in March from a year earlier, a little hotter than the 3.4% rise economists had predicted.
That also marked a slight pick-up from the 3.2% annual gain seen in February.
And inflation in March also turned out to be hotter than expected when measured on a monthly basis.
Inflation at these levels is still significantly better than it was two years ago, when it peaked at a decades-high of 9.1%.
But inflation is proving to be very stubborn. Although the Federal Reserve has managed to get inflation down significantly from two years ago, it’s finding it exceedingly hard to push it below that 3% level.
That matters. That’s because a rise of consumer…