Soaring gas prices leads to biggest monthly inflation spike in four years in March

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Updated 8:01 AM CDT, April 10, 2026
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WASHINGTON (AP) — The largest monthly jump in gas prices in six decades caused a sharp spike in inflation in March, creating major challenges for the inflation-fighters at the Federal Reserve and heightening the political challenges of rising costs for the White House.

Consumer prices rose 3.3% in March from a year earlier, the Labor Department said Friday, up sharply from just 2.4% in February and the biggest yearly increase since May 2024. On a monthly basis, prices rose 0.9% in March from February, the largest such increase in nearly four years.

It’s the first read on inflation to capture the effects of the Iran war.

Excluding the volatile food and energy categories, core prices rose 2.6% in March from a year earlier, up from 2.5% in February. But last month core prices rose a modest 0.2%, suggesting that rising gas prices haven’t yet spread to many other categories.


https://apnews.com/article/inflation-prices-gas-federal-reserve-trump-bf00c3105d5da88a0b01d9107ed4ecee