{"id":517232,"date":"2026-03-11T14:58:13","date_gmt":"2026-03-11T14:58:13","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/517232\/"},"modified":"2026-03-11T14:58:13","modified_gmt":"2026-03-11T14:58:13","slug":"prices-held-steady-last-month-cpi-data-shows","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/517232\/","title":{"rendered":"Prices held steady last month, CPI data shows"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Consumer prices broadly remained unchanged in February, holding steady just before war with Iran rattled markets and threatened to wear a hole in Americans’ pocketbooks, government data shows.<\/a><\/p>\n

The Consumer Price Index increased 0.3% in February on a monthly basis and 2.4% over last year, matching economists’ expectations while showing little change from January’s cooler-than-expected print<\/a>, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ inflation report <\/a>released Wednesday.<\/p>\n

On a “core” basis, excluding volatile energy and food categories, consumer prices rose 0.2% from a month earlier and 2.5% from a year ago, also matching economists’ predictions.<\/p>\n

Read more: February CPI breakdown: Inflation steadies, but consumers brace for energy fallout<\/a><\/p>\n

But Wednesday’s report comes with a big caveat: The data covers the period before the war with Iran broke out, which has raised gas prices<\/a> and fueled concerns about higher utility bills.<\/p>\n

“Today\u2019s CPI report is already something of a historical artefact,” Seema Shah, chief global strategist at Principal Asset Management, said in a statement. “With oil prices up roughly $30 in recent weeks \u2014 and potentially heading toward triple digits \u2014 investors are far more focused on how the conflict feeds into inflation over the months ahead.”<\/p>\n

\"A A sign displays gas prices as people put gasoline in vehicles on Sunday, March 8, 2026, in Portland, Ore. (AP Photo\/Jenny Kane) \u00b7 ASSOCIATED PRESS <\/p>\n

As of February, electricity prices had already increased 4.8% from last year, government data shows, while natural gas prices had increased 10.9% over the same period. Gasoline prices fell 5.6% on an annual basis in February \u2014 but have jumped 60 cents a gallon on average since this time last month.<\/p>\n

The data “offers some reassurance that underlying inflation pressures were not moving in the wrong direction before the latest energy shock,” Shah said.<\/p>\n

Read more: How oil price shocks ripple through your wallet, from gas to groceries<\/a><\/p>\n

Other concerns about the pace of price increases remain, however.<\/p>\n

The Federal Reserve’s preferred gauge of inflation \u2014 the Personal Consumption Expenditures index, which includes spending on behalf of consumers for things like employer-based health insurance \u2014 ran a bit hotter than expected in December, posting a 2.9% annual increase. That’s well above the Federal Reserve’s target of 2%, and economists see that pace holding in January’s data, set for release Friday.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, the labor market also appears to be on shaky ground<\/a> after unexpectedly losing 92,000 positions last month, pushing the unemployment rate up to 4.4%. That’s further complicating the Federal Reserve’s rate deliberations<\/a> as policymakers weigh higher oil prices and inflation amid conflict with Iran, coupled with a soft job market.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Consumer prices broadly remained unchanged in February, holding steady just before war with Iran rattled markets and threatened…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":517233,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[28,9970,57923,67663,29429,97941,44832,55210,801,117191,4011],"class_list":["post-517232","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-business","tag-business","tag-consumer-prices","tag-cpi-report","tag-electricity-prices","tag-gas-prices","tag-gasoline-prices","tag-government-data","tag-inflation-report","tag-iran","tag-natural-gas-prices","tag-oil-prices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517232","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=517232"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/517232\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/517233"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=517232"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=517232"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=517232"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}