Name: February inflation rate at 0.3% month over month and 2.4% year over year
Uploaded: 2026-03-11T23:01:59.000Z
Duration: 4 min 13 s
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In February, inflation rose by 0.3% month over month.

Adverbs of manner

And then the number you're probably keeping track of, 2.4% year over year, that was in line with expectations.

NBC News business and data correspondent Brian Chung joins us from the big board.

Brian, walk us through these numbers and how they compare with these previous months.

This is one of those reports that was just as expected.

But of course, the question is with the war in Iran, how is that going to change going forward?

Because the numbers that we're looking at preceded the conflict happening.

So again, what we're talking about here, as you mentioned, 2.4%, that's how much prices rose between February of this year and February of last year.

As you look at the yearly rate that's essentially unchanged from where we saw the last reading in January of 2.4%.

So again, the story here is largely the same, that, yes, we're not at that 2% target that economists say is healthy for an economy, but

nonetheless, that is still vast improvement from the around 9% that we saw at peak at in the summer of 2022.

So when we break it down by category, what do we see?

Yeah, so if we break it down by category and again, we're looking at the major categories here, food, energy and shelter.

Now, what we're looking at are monthly changes between February, or rather between January and February, food prices increased by 4.10of a percent.

Energy prices interestingly did go up by 6.10of a percent.

Oil prices and gas prices at the pump were already kind of nudging higher, although certainly not to levels that we had seen yet.

And then shelter costs, the biggest one, just putting a roof over your head, that increased by 2.10of a percent, the same pace that we had seen in the month prior.

But again, it seems like this food prices and energy prices are worth watching, especially as we get into March.

Brian, this report doesn't reflect the price changes we've seen since the Middle east war started.

Walk us through how that could impact things here.

Yeah, I'll go into oil in a quick second.

I just want to point out that there are a few other types of commodities that we're watching as well.

Egg prices, by the way, having gone down pretty substantially.

Also $4, $0.03, ground beef up to $6.70 a pound.

That is up about a dollar from last year.

To your point, again, what we're looking at here in terms of this government data that comes in February, this number preceded the Iran war, but

at the time, gasoline prices were $3 and 7 cents.

But again, the question is this next report, the one after that, in about a month, is going to show a massive spike as a result of the closure of the Strait of Hormuz, where a lot of those tankers, 20% of the world's traffic goes through.

And here is the most recent reading that we have according to Triple A today, $3.58 a gallon on average.

Again, that's up over half a dollar from where we just saw that measure that I just showed you.

So again, the next March inflation report is going to show that dramatic uptick as a result of the war.

And I have to imagine the Fed is maybe looking at the gas prices right now, perhaps even more than the February inflation report, as they try to figure out what to do next.

Keeping in mind, we had that jobs report that wasn't ideal a little bit ago.

What's, what's it looking like for the Fed?

Yeah, the Fed set to make a decision next Wednesday.

I don't have the exact countdown because my partner in crime, Caleb Silver, is not here.

But nonetheless, if we do talk about the overall picture for the Fed, they're looking at this chart.

Again, the yearly rates over the last year or so.

There's a big hole here in the middle because we didn't get the October data.

But if you consider that the 2.4, we're basically going sideways here.

You might look at this figure and go, okay, for the Federal Reserve, you want inflation to go down.

But again, keep in mind, where we are right now is at 2.4%.

So for that reason, the Fed might say, okay, you know what, Especially with that jobs picture weakening.

As we saw, there was a contraction in the amount of jobs that we saw in this country in the month of February as we got in that report last week, maybe there's not a compelling picture quite yet to begin aggressively cutting interest rates, despite the President's desire for the Federal Reserve to do so.

That is why the Fed is largely expected to not do anything with interest rates next week.

But of course, we'll have to see on Wednesday.

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