washington sept 14 reuters  federal reserve officials adjourned their july 2627 policy meeting with an unusually long eightweek break before their next gathering sending a heavierthannormal amount of us data about inflation jobs and the economy to their inboxes the interlude however has been less clarifying than humbling as us central bank officials gained little sense of how their battle against inflation may end and instead acknowledged the fight may take longer than expected there still seems a chance that price pressures can be lowered without a sharp economic slowdown signs of a developing recession have eased since the feds policysetting committee last met yet inflation has shown no sign of abating read more for now it appears likely that the fed will raise interest rates by threequarters of a percentage point next week although the release on tuesday of higherthanexpected consumer price data introduced a measure of uncertainty to that outlook  to the high side read more what comes after that meeting is up for grabs new economic projections to be released alongside the sept 21 policy statement will give an indication of what policymakers think will happen but their track record of late has not been good fed officials got a jolt in june when inflation rose faster than expected then a bit of a reprieve in july when the annual pace of price increases slowed that brief shining moment providing some hope the worst was over evaporated in august though falling gasoline prices helped ease overall inflation  by a bit  the decline was modest and underneath it all a wide variety of core prices unexpectedly increased the consumer price index rose at an annual pace of 83 last month excluding the volatile food and energy components it registered 63 all told despite the feds fastest set of rate hikes since the early 1980s inflation so far is moving sideways for inflation to fall from its current annual pace to something near the feds 2 target the monthtomonth increase would have to average around 02 about a third of what it has been averaging since the start of 2021 most sobering the mechanics arent working as expected much stock was put in the idea that goods prices would fall as supply chains improved and offset what was also expected to be a rise in service costs as people began traveling going out to eat and catching up on types of spending limited during the covid19 pandemic service inflation has picked up goods prices have not hit the cliff yet however and in fact rose in august and more pain may be on the way in recent weeks fed officials have pinpointed rising rents as likely keeping inflation high for the time being and continued wage growth  particularly relevant to prices in the laborintensive service sector  as a concern as well the two full months of fresh data since the feds july meeting have not been all bad in late august revisions to estimates of gross domestic product and gross domestic income for the first half of the year eased concerns about a developing recession gdp still shrank but by less than initially estimated the income measure another way to track the economys speed continued to grow averaging the two together the us economy managed small gains from january through july more notably for the fed the job market not only remains strong it is starting to behave in ways that policymakers have hoped for the two monthly employment reports released since the feds last meeting showed the economy added 526000 jobs in july and 315000 in august a continued strong showing for a labor market the fed hopes can weather higher interest rates without the shock of major layoffs there are plenty of skeptics and the book is still open for the feds hopedfor soft landing of lower inflation alongside a healthy job market and growing economy upcoming data on job openings needs to show vacancies in decline the unemployment rate ticked up somewhat in august but the fed hopes the real release valve for wage pressures and labor market tightness will come from employers scaling back hiring plans as the economy cools instead of paying a premium for workers they feel they need to meet demand and pad profits the august data did show some potentially good trends for the fed the increase in the unemployment rate for example from 35 to 37 was driven by a rise in labor force participation  of more people not just in jobs but choosing to look for them perhaps more importantly the labor force gain was the product of strong flows into the job market not just as it sometimes is a decline in people leaving  an important distinction the number of people outside the labor force who shifted directly into a job in august at 49 million was the largest since the start of the pandemic the number of unemployed people giving up on job searches and leaving the labor force similarly was the lowest at 13 million both numbers point to the sort of rising pool of labor and growing attachment to the labor force that could help ease wage pressures and also help lower the vacancy rate over time reporting by howard schneider editing by dan burns and paul simao