The final inflation report for 2025 will be released on Tuesday morning, capping a year in which the pace of inflation slowed but prices did not objectively fall.

Analysts say inflation most likely continued to rise in December, potentially the latest sign of the affordability crisis consumers have been complaining about in recent months.

An unusual two-month report released in mid-December showed inflation rose 0.2% from October to November, and economists expect inflation to rise 0.3% from November to December.

On an annual basis, inflation is expected to continue rising at 2.7%, consistent with the previous report.

Analysts at UBS said they expected December’s data to be the “strongest monthly rise since January” in 2025, with core inflation – a measure that excludes volatile food and energy prices – rising 0.44%.

UBS analysts wrote that consumers were also likely to feel a sharp rise in food prices during December.

“Household food prices are expected to rise quite significantly,” the researchers said. “Eggs are no longer seeing a decline in price, and prices for ham and fresh fruit (among other raw materials) are rising.”

The Trump administration continues to roll out policy programs aimed at lowering the prices of everyday goods.

This is a challenge made even more urgent by Washington’s election-year politics. Some members plan to decide on their first challengers in party primaries as early as March.

President Donald Trump has in recent days required oil companies to invest in and export Venezuelan oil as part of a broader effort to lower gas prices. He ordered $200 billion worth of mortgage bond purchases aimed at lowering mortgage rates and ordered credit card companies to cap interest rates at 10% for one year.

With the administration’s focus on cost-cutting, President Trump continues to press interest rates from the Federal Reserve to lower them, with interest rates at the center of his economic message.

The Justice Department’s announcement Sunday that it would launch a criminal investigation into the Federal Reserve sent shockwaves through Wall Street and Washington, raising questions about the independence of an agency designed to operate free of political interference.

The survey comes just before the central bank decides on its next interest rate policy later this month, when officials are widely expected to keep rates on hold.

Lower borrowing costs can stimulate economic growth by making it easier for consumers to finance big purchases like cars and mortgages, and by making it easier for businesses to take out loans to expand their businesses.

“The Fed remains focused on the labor market over inflation,” Bank of America economists said Monday.

Analysts at Citigroup Inc. said Monday they expect “some distortion” in Tuesday’s inflation report due to the historically long government shutdown late last year.

“Inflation remains a challenge,” Principal Asset Management’s Seema Shah wrote in a note to clients.

Since President Trump imposed sweeping tariffs on his self-proclaimed “Emancipation Day” in April 2025, “imported product prices have increased by 3%, and domestic product prices have increased by a similar amount,” Shah wrote.

The amount of price increases passed on to consumers as a result of the tariffs is “limited,” she wrote.

However, not everyone believes that inflation will rise by only three-tenths of a percent.

Analysts at JPMorgan said inflation in the September-November period was depressed by the government shutdown and the timing of the holiday season at the end of November.

“The December report should correct for some of these biases, resulting in a fairly robust month-over-month increase,” they wrote.