WASHINGTON — U.S. wholesale prices rose last month, remaining low but suggesting the U.S. economy has not yet completely overcome inflationary pressures.

The report released Thursday by the Labor Department showed that its producer price index – which tracks inflation before it reaches consumers – rose 0.2% from September to October, up from 0. 1% the previous month. Compared to the previous year, wholesale prices rose 2.4%, an acceleration from the 1.9% year-over-year increase recorded in September. The rise in prices of services was at the origin of the October increase.

Excluding the prices of food and energy products, which tend to rebound from one month to the next, so-called basic wholesale prices increased by 0.3% compared to September and by 3.1% per year. compared to the previous year. The readings were what economists expected.

Since peaking in mid-2022, inflation has fallen more or less steadily. But average prices are still nearly 20% higher than three years ago – a persistent source of public exasperation that led to Donald Trump’s defeat by Vice President Kamala Harris in the election presidential election last week and the return of control of the Senate to the Republicans.

The October producer price report comes a day after the Labor Department reported that consumer prices increased by 2.6% last month from a year earlier, a sign that consumer inflation may be stabilizing after slowing to its lowest level in September. slowest pace since 2021. Most economists, however, believe that inflation will eventually resume its slowdown.

Inflation has moved closer to the Federal Reserve’s 2% one-year target, and the central bank’s inflation fighters have been pleased enough with the improvement to cut their benchmark interest rate twice since September – a reversal of policy after raising rates 11 times. in 2022 and 2023.

The producer price index released Thursday may offer a first glimpse of the direction consumer inflation could take. Economists also watch it because some of its components, including health care and financial services, enter into the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge — the personal consumption expenditures index, or PCE.

Trump’s election victory has raised doubts about the future development of inflation and whether the Fed will continue to cut rates. In September, the Fed virtually declared victory over inflation and cut its benchmark interest rate by an unusually high half-percentage point, its first rate cut since March 2020, when the pandemic hit the economy. Last week, the central bank announced a second rate cut, a more typical quarter-point reduction.

Although Trump has promised to lower prices, in part by encouraging oil and gas drilling, some of his other campaign wishes – imposing massive taxes on imports and deporting millions of immigrants working illegally in the United States – are considered to be inflationary according to traditional economists. Always, Wall Street traders see 82% probability of a third rate cut at the next Fed meeting in December, according to the CME FedWatch tool.

Inflation began to rise in 2021 as the economy accelerated surprisingly quickly out of the pandemic recession, causing severe shortages of goods and labor. The Fed raised its benchmark interest rate 11 times in 2022 and 2023, reaching its highest level in 23 years. The resulting much higher borrowing costs were expected to tip the United States into recession. This did not happen. The economy continued to grow and employers continued to hire. And, overall, inflation has continued to slow.