Prices climb at fastest pace in 30 years as supply chain snarls linger

The data come as economists regard the horizon with apprehension. Factory shutdowns in Asia continue to ripple through the global supply chain. Commodity costs, including those for oil and gas, are rising. Rents are rebounding at a breakneck pace after a pandemic swoon, threatening to push housing inflation — an important part of the overall price index — higher.

Officials at the Fed are watching those trends themselves, and while they say that they still expect inflation to fade, they acknowledge that the process is taking longer than they had expected or hoped.

It is “frustrating to see the bottlenecks and supply chain problems not getting better — in fact, at the margin, apparently getting a little bit worse,” Jerome H. Powell, the Fed’s chair, said while speaking on a panel on Wednesday. “We see that continuing into next year, probably, and holding inflation up longer than we had thought.”