Fed chair Kevin Warsh has expressed a preference for the trimmed-mean PCE, which excludes extreme price moves before calculating a weighted average. Boston College economist Brian Bethune said the trimmed-mean PCE is not the most reliable gauge: it performs best when inflation shocks mirror the 2009–2019 pre-pandemic period, when positive and negative shocks were balanced. When price shocks are predominantly upward — supply disruptions, tariffs, oil-price spikes or large one-off events such as t

Fed chair Kevin Warsh has expressed a preference for the trimmed-mean PCE, which excludes extreme price moves before calculating a weighted average. Boston College economist Brian Bethune said the trimmed-mean PCE is not the most reliable gauge: it performs best when inflation shocks mirror the 2009–2019 pre-pandemic period, when positive and negative shocks were balanced. When price shocks are predominantly upward — supply disruptions, tariffs, oil-price spikes or large one-off events such as the World Cup — the metric tends to understate inflation, he said, and he hopes someone will challenge Warsh on the point. Regardless of the chosen gauge, US inflation has remained above the Fed's 2% target since spring 2021.