Inflation has been top-of-mind for consumers for years now. And for years, Federal Reserve officials say the inflation rate is heading toward its goal, albeit on a slow and bumpy road. The February Consumer Price Index report,

Consumer prices rose more slowly than expected in February, providing at least a brief sigh of relief from Wall Street and giving the Federal Reserve some flexibility to resume its rate-cutting cycle eventually,

Stripping out more volatile food and energy prices, the core CPI also moderated, coming in at 0.2 percent in February. That pushed the annual core CPI down to 3.1 percent. Core CPI has been mired in this range since last May and we still haven’t seen a core reading below 3 percent.