The rate of US inflation barely moved in November, the last piece of major economic news before the Federal Reserve weighs whether to cut interest rates for the third time this year at its meeting next week.

Prices rose 2.7% in November compared with a year before, according to consumer price index (CPI) data released by the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) on Wednesday measuring the prices of select goods and services.

The core inflation rate, which removes the volatile food and energy industries from the data, also held steady last month, at 3.3%.

The annual rate of inflation still remains above the Fed’s targeted goal of 2%, and many economists and investors are betting that the Fed will cut rates on 18 December. Expectations place a potential cut at a quarter-point, which would bring rates down to 4.25% from 4.5%.

Inflation peaked at 9.1% in June 2022, a 40-year high, and has gradually come down over the last two years. The lowest inflation has been since then was 2.4%, in September, though it ticked up to 2.6% in October.

Since the summer, inflation has held relatively steady below 3%, even after the Fed cut interest rates twice – first by a half-point in September and then by a quarter-point in November.

Though the labor market proved to be resilient in November, with 227,000 new jobs added last month, the unemployment rate ticked up slightly, from 4.1% to 4.2%. While the change is small, it’s still a sign that the jobs market is cooling, especially after the economy added just 12,000 jobs in October.

Last month, the Fed chair, Jerome Powell, said the central bank had “gained confidence that we’re on a sustainable path down to 2%” and that officials were aware of the impacts high interest rates can have on the labor market. Rates sat at 5.25-5.5% for over a year, until the Fed started cutting rates in September.

“We know that reducing policy restraint too quickly could hinder progress on inflation. At the same time, reducing policy restraint too slowly could unduly weaken economic activity and employment,” Powell said in November.

If the Fed ends up cutting rates next week, economists expect that the central bank will then pause any rate changes at the start of the new year, especially with Donald Trump entering the White House again.

Since winning the election, the president-elect has doubled down on his call to implement tariffs, which is widely expected to cause inflation if enacted. Trump told Meet the Press on Sunday, in his first televised interview since winning the election, that tariffs “cost Americans nothing” – a statement that economists largely say is untrue.

Trump had also put himself at odds with the Fed during his campaign, implying at times that he believes the White House should have more say over interest rates, in what would be a clear transgression in the separation of powers between the president and the central bank. Last month, Powell, when prompted by reporters, said he would not resign, even if he were under pressure from a Trump administration to do so.