There is a link to that in one of my previous posts in this thread. The statement comes from the Brookings Institute.
"What is driving the federal budget into bankruptcy?
Health care spending"
No, the federal reserve is not a primary force causing inflation. However, they are slow to act in fear of applying to much restrain to the economy and starting an economy slow down.
In the last quarter of 2020, the first Corvid vaccine was given and business and government leaders became optimist that the end of Covid in the US was near. Signs of real economic growth were appearing. In January 2021, Biden took office. During the first half on the year, two things happened. We had solid economic growth but we also had a jump in inflation. Fear that economic restrains to curb the inflation would slow economic growth. both the FED and BLS wanted to see more proof before restraining growth.
It would not be till March 2022, that the FED decided that they had enough evidence to start increasing interest rates without causing an economic slow down. In hindsight, they may have waited too long. Inflation hit 9.1% in July 2022.
Although they seemed to wait to long to start interest rate increases, their persistence monthly increases in rates paid off by bring inflation rates down steadily from 9.1% to 3% by 2024 without causing an economic slow down.
Although the FED goal was 2% inflation by 2024, they now seem content to settle for 3 to 3.4% since they have got it below the 50 year historic averages. They have also indicated that they hope to have an interest rate cut by the end of the year and are confident that they will get it back to 2% but they are depending more on natural forces in the economy to eventually get us there.
In October 2024, Inflation increased slightly by 2.6 percent since October 2023.
www.statista.com