In January of the new year, consumer price index inflation rose twice as fast as economist expectations. Although headline CPI year over year slowed from 3.4% to 3.1%, the Federal Reserve‘s preferred measure of core CPI, which excludes the volatile categories of food and energy, stagnated at 3.9% annually.

That’s nearly twice as high as the central bank’s maximum inflation target of 2%. Core CPI for January on an annualized basis was 4.8%, signaling a slight surge, not a slowdown, in price hikes across the economy.