AFP, Washington

The US Federal Reserve’s preferred inflation measure was largely unchanged last month, according to government data published Friday, but a widely scrutinized gauge of underlying price pressures rose.

The personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index rose 2.5 percent in the 12 months to February, the Commerce Department said in a statement, unchanged from a month earlier. Inflation rose 0.3 percent on a monthly basis.

Both measures were in line with the median forecasts from economists surveyed by Dow Jones Newswires and The Wall Street Journal.

But of greater concern to Fed officials, an inflation measure stripping out volatile food and energy costs rose more than expected, by 0.4 percent month-on-month, and by 2.8 percent from a year ago.

The Fed is attempting to return inflation to its long-term target of two percent. Friday’s data suggests policymakers still have some way to go as they also grapple with the effects of trade policy uncertainty.

“They’re kind of in wait-and-see mode for awhile,” Wolfe Research chief economist Stephanie Roth told AFP. “Our call is that they’re going to cut rates because growth is weakening, but they actually need to see a rising unemployment rate first.

“So today probably doesn’t really change the narrative that much for them,” she added.

US President Donald Trump has embarked on a stop-start rollout of country- and sector-specific tariffs, drawing condemnation from allies and warnings from Fed officials that the measures will likely push up prices.