Shoppers at a mall in Santa Monica, Calif., earlier this month. High inflation has been sapping consumer confidence as people face down rising costs.Credit…Philip Cheung for The New York TimesFederal Reserve policymakers are finishing a year that has been colored by surprisingly high inflation with yet another piece of bad news: The price measure they follow most closely touched its highest level since 1982.The Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, which is the one the Fed officially targets when it aims for 2 percent annual inflation on average over time, climbed 5.7 percent in November from a year earlier, the Commerce Department said on Thursday. Part of the jump owed to gasoline prices — they were up sharply in November but have moderated this month — but a so-called core index that strips out food and fuel prices also increased sharply, to 4.7 percent.The sharp run-up in inflation this year, and the fact that it has lingered, leaves policymakers and economists trying to assess what will happen in 2022.Rapidly rising prices are lasting longer than policymakers had hoped and have become broader in recent months. Earlier this year, big price increases were la …
