Scott Horsley

Scott Horsley adds that concerns about employment

They're really in a tough spot, you know, because inflation is still well above their target.

And ordinarily, the central bank would try to curb inflation by keeping interest rates high.

But the Fed's also worried about that softening job market.

And the way it usually deals with that is by lowering interest rates.

So there's a real tug of war here.

The Fed did cut rates at its last two meetings, but minutes show there were strongly differing views about whether a third cut would be warranted this month.

What's going on?

Yeah, we just got some fresh data from the University of Michigan, which conducts regular monthly surveys on how people are feeling about the economy.

And the early readout for December shows a little improvement from the previous month.

But Joanne Xu, who oversees the survey, says economic sentiment is still pretty downbeat compared to where it was this time last year.

And that's backed up by some numbers we just got from the Commerce Department.

These are not as timely as the Michigan survey.

They're from September, but we're just getting them now because they were held up by the government shutdown.

They show that inflation in September was still pretty high.

Prices were up 2.8% from a year ago.

On the plus side, inflation doesn't seem to be getting a lot worse, but unfortunately, it's not getting much better either.

Is that what's making people so anxious about the economy?

High prices are certainly part of the story.

The Commerce Department says personal spending increased in September, but just barely enough to keep pace with those rising prices.