To the naked eye, a key US inflation metric held steady in March. But look a little closer at two or three decimal places and you’ll see that it actually picked up.

The core personal consumption expenditures index, which measures year-over-year changes in how much Americans actually spend on items excluding volatile energy and food prices and is the Federal Reserve’s favored inflation gauge, was 2.8% in March. That is above consensus economist forecasts of 2.7%, but is flat from February’s 2.8%.

The last batch of inflation news that Federal Reserve officials will see before their policy meeting next week is in, and none of it is very good.

Fresh inflation data released Friday cemented the message from Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell last week that high interest rates are here to stay for now.