A much-anticipated inflation report for August that landed Friday morning reinforced Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh’s recent observations that progress toward disinflation had stalled over the summer.
The consumer price index (CPI) ticked up 3.4% from a year ago last month, matching the annual pace of growth in July, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.
But monthly growth of 0.4% in August outpaced the 0.1% rise in July, fueled by larger-than-expected gains in core CPI, a measure of underlying inflation that strips out volatile food and energy prices.
Core prices rose 0.3% last month, exceeding the 0.2% forecast by economists surveyed by Reuters, Dow Jones and Bloomberg. That underscores an acceleration from core readings of...