Monthly Inflation Ticked Up in Early Hints of Tariff Effects

Monthly inflation picked up slightly in April, a month when businesses were yanked back and forth as they tried to adjust to President Trump’s unpredictable trade policies.

The consumer-price index rose a seasonally adjusted 0.2% in April, the Labor Department said Tuesday. That matched the forecasts of economists polled by The Wall Street Journal. However, it was a turnaround from March, when month-over-month prices fell 0.1%.

Year-over-year inflation cooled to a 2.3% increase in April, below the 2.4% that economists had expected and below March’s annual rate. A big decline in gasoline prices versus a year earlier helped pull that rate lower.