Fed's favored inflation gauge remained elevated in February, delayed report shows ^⁠18%

4/9/2026, 12:34:30 PM

Topics: Federal Reserve Policy, Consumer Prices

Keywords: Pce Inflation, Federal Reserve, Commerce Department, Core Pce, Goods Prices, Services Prices

BS Summary: This article contains 8 faulty reasoning types, including Recency Bias, Status Quo Bias, and Biased Writer Voice, with Framing Effect as the most egregious example at 20% saturation with 53 hits. Analysis detected 232 faulty-reasoning hits from 265 analyzed words, generating a BS Score of 33.2% and a BS Rank of ⁠18% (18,047 of 21,886 articles). This article is better (less manipulative) than 82.50% of the article peer group.

Confidence50%

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265 words

This story about the February 2026 PCE inflation is developing and will be updated with more details.

The Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge remained stubbornly high in February as consumers continued to face elevated price growth.

The Commerce Department on Thursday reported that the personal consumption expenditures (PCE) index rose 0.4% on a monthly basis in February and is up 2.8% from a year ago.

Both figures were in-line with the expectations of economists polled by LSEG.

Core PCE, which excludes volatile measurements of food and energy prices, was up 0.4% from a month ago and increased 3% year over year.

Both figures were in line with economists' expectations from the LSEG poll.

Federal Reserve policymakers are focusing on the PCE headline figure as they try to bring inflation back to their long-run target of 2%, though they view core data as a better indicator of inflation.

Compared with January's readings, headline PCE inflation held steady at 2.8%, while core PCE decreased slightly from 3.1%.

Prices for goods were up 1.2% in February on an annual basis, down from 1.3% in January.

Goods price growth had slowed over the course of 2025, declining from an annual reading of 4.2% in January 2025 to 0.1% in December.

Services prices were up 3% from a year ago in February, an increase from the 2.6% reading in January.

The index was last this high in January 2025, when services prices were up 2.9% on an annual basis.

This is a developing story.

Please check back for updates.

265 words analyzed.

Speakers

2speakers31%attributed speech183writer words

53 attributed words65% of attributed speech45% writer coverage

Attribution is sentence-level. Pattern percentages are calculated only from words assigned to that voice.

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Fed's favored inflation gauge remained elevated in February, delayed report shows ^⁠18%

Speakers

Federal Reserve

Analysis

Biases

Fallacies

Manipulations

Fed's favored inflation gauge remained elevated in February, delayed report shows ⁠18%

Speakers

Federal Reserve

Analysis

Biases

Fallacies

Manipulations

Fed's favored inflation gauge remained elevated in February, delayed report shows ^⁠18%