Federal Reserve minutes: Some officials highlighted worsening inflation last month

abcnews.go.com:

Some Federal Reserve policymakers argued at their most recent meeting in March that inflation was likely worsening, even before the government reported Wednesday that price increases re-accelerated last month

WASHINGTON — Some Federal Reserve policymakers argued at their most recent meeting in March that inflation was likely worsening, even before the government reported Wednesday that price increases re-accelerated last month.

According to the minutes of the Fed's March 19-20 meeting released Wednesday, all 19 officials generally agreed that high inflation readings in January and February “had not increased their confidence” that inflation was falling steadily to their 2% target.

Many economists had suggested that the outsize price increases in the first two months of the year probably reflected one-time moves that often happen at the start of a year as companies impose annual price hikes. But some Fed officials at the March meeting disputed that assessment, saying that the higher prices were “relatively broad-based and therefore should not be discounted as merely statistical aberrations."

On Wednesday, that assessment appeared to be confirmed. The government reported that for a third straight month, consumer inflation rose at a pace faster than is consistent with the Fed's target level.

Excluding volatile food and energy costs, “core” prices jumped 0.4% from February to March. These core prices were 3.8% higher than they were a year earlier, the same reading as the previous month. The Fed closely tracks core prices because they tend to provide a good reading on where inflation is headed.

Wednesday's data raised fears that inflation appears, for now, to be stuck above the Fed's 2% target. It has made little progress