US inflation eased slightly last month as price increases extend slow descent

abcnews.go.com:

Measures of U.S. inflation barely declined in September, evidence that consumer price increases are grinding lower at a gradual pace

WASHINGTON — Measures of U.S. inflation barely declined in September, evidence that consumer price increases are grinding lower at a gradual pace.

Consumer prices rose 0.4% from August to September, below the previous month's 0.6% pace. Thursday’s report from the Labor Department also showed that year-over-year inflation was unchanged last month from a 3.7% rise in August.

And underlying inflation declined a bit: So-called core prices, which exclude volatile food and energy costs, climbed 4.1% in September from a year earlier, down from a 4.3% pace in August. That is the smallest such increase in two years. Economists pay particularly close attention to core prices because they provide a good signal of inflation's likely future path.

Still, on a month-to-month basis, prices are continuing to rise faster than is consistent with the Federal Reserve’s 2% target. Core prices increased 0.3% from August to September, the same as in the previous month.

The report “was a mixed bag,” said Laura Rosner-Warburton, senior economist at MacroPolicy Perspectives, a forecasting firm. «It still suggests that we have exited the higher inflation regime of the pandemic, but we’re still elevated.”

Thursday's inflation data is unlikely to change the Fed's outlook, Rosner-Warburton said, because the central bank already expected only a gradual decline in inflation.

“I don’t think this was an upside surprise to the Fed,» she said. “This is probably in line with what they were expecting."

Rosner-Warburton, like most economists, expects Fed officials to keep their key interest rate unchanged at their next meeting