Fed Officials Say Recent Inflation Uptick ‘Should Not Be Discounted’: Minutes

Federal Reserve officials admitted that the latest inflation data have not increased their confidence that inflation is traveling sustainably down to the central bank’s 2 percent target, according to Fed minutes. Participants at the March Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) policy meeting agreed about the uncertainty surrounding the persistence of high inflation. While there was debate over whether these were bumps in the road or something more, some officials alluded to how broad-based the latest uptick in inflation has been “and should not be discounted as merely statistics aberrations.” “However, a few participants noted that residual seasonality could have affected the inflation readings at the start of the year,” the minutes stated. “Participants generally commented that they remained highly attentive to inflation risks but that they had also anticipated that there would be some unevenness in monthly inflation readings as inflation returned to target.”...