The latest update to the Federal Reserve’s preferred price gauge on Friday should confirm a bumpy start to the year on the inflation front.

January and February indicators showed a resilient U.S. economy, particularly in the labor market, with higher-than-expected inflation. The central bank is taking a wait-and-see approach to lowering interest rates this year as it assesses whether progress on reducing inflation to its 2% annual target has stalled.

Fed officials’ preferred measure of inflation is the core personal consumption expenditures price index, due at 8:30 a.m. on Friday as part of the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ personal income and outlays report.

Economists’ consensus estimate for the headline PCE price index, according to FactSet, is a 0.4% rise in February after gaining 0.3% in January. The year-over-year rise would be 2.5%, up from 2.4% in the 12 months through January.

The data are published around two weeks after the consumer price index and the producer price index for the same month. The PCE price index incorporates elements of both, and has generally landed in between the two in recent months.

The CPI increased 0.4% in February, faster than its 0.3% rise in January and up 3.2% from a year ago, according to the BEA. The core CPI, which excludes food and energy, also increased 0.4%—matching the January pace. The annual change fell to 3.8% from 3.9%. The headline PPI increased by 0.6% in February, while the core index rose by 0.3%.

Translating the February CPI and PPI components to the core PCE price index—which excludes energy and food components—suggests a 0.3% monthly increase, according to Citi economists, versus a 0.4% increase in January. That would be good for a 2.8% year-over-year increase, matching the January one-year change.

At his post-Federal Open Market Committee meeting press conference on March 20, Fed chair Jerome Powell said that higher-than-expected January inflation data could be partially explained by seasonal adjustments at the start of the year.

“Nonetheless, we don’t want to be completely dismissive of it,” Powell said. “We currently have [an estimate of] below thirty basis points [0.3%] for core PCE in February, which is not terribly hot. So…I take the two of them together and I think they haven’t really changed the overall story, which is that of inflation gradually moving down a sometimes bumpy road to 2%.”

The annual change in the core PCE price index peaked in September 2022 at 5.2%.