In particular, core inflation, which excludes volatile oil and food prices, has increased somewhat. (Overall inflation obviously matters more for household budgets, but core inflation matters more to the Fed, because it’s a better predictor of future inflation than inflation itself.) Over the last three months, the Fed’s preferred measure of core inflation has risen at annual rate of 1.4 percent, up from less than 1 percent last year.

Still, 1.4 percent remains low — considerably lower than the past decade’s average of 1.9 percent, the 1990s average of 2.2 percent or the 1980s average of 4.6 percent. Unemployment, on the other hand, remains high. By any standard, joblessness is a bigger problem than inflation.

There is also reason to think that inflation will fall in coming months. Rising oil prices alone aren’t enough to create an inflationary spiral. Workers also need to have enough leverage to demand substantial raises — which then forces companies to increase prices and, in turn, gives workers further reason to demand raises. In today’s economy, this chain of events is pretty hard to fathom.

Adam Posen, an American economist who’s now an official at the Bank of England, told The Guardian this week that he was so confident inflation in Britain would decline that he would resign if it did not. His analysis also applies to the United States. “Wages,” Mr. Posen said, “will be the dog that doesn’t bark.”

It’s still too soon to know what the Fed should do next. Its current plan is to let the program known as QE2 — for quantitative easing, round two — expire in June. The program started late last year, once the economy’s troubles were impossible to ignore, as an attempt to reduce long-term interest rates by buying Treasury bonds.

If the economic data improves and inflation does not drop, ending QE2 will be the right call. But if the economy continues to weaken, there will be a strong case for doing more. One option would be to buy both Treasury bonds and mortgage-backed bonds, as the Fed did during QE1, as a way to attack the double dip in the housing market.

The problem is that some Fed officials already seem to have made up their minds, regardless of the data. In their public remarks, officials continue to wring their hands about QE2 rather than prepare people for the possibility of QE3. Some hawks have gone so far as to suggest halting QE2 early.

Meanwhile, the recovery looks uncertain, and the job market remains weak. Even if job growth were to accelerate sharply in coming months, the economy would be years away from so-called full employment. But never mind that, the hawks say — rampant inflation is just around the corner.