While that seepage is not yet evident in the Consumer Price Index, Fed policy makers, in the statement they issued after the June 25 meeting, suggested that inflation in the weeks ahead could be as troubling as any economic weakness. It was the first time this year they had given the two equal billing.

The June statement said: “In the light of the continued increases in the prices of energy and some other commodities and the elevated state of some indicators of inflation expectations, uncertainty about the inflation outlook remains high.”

The emphasis on inflation reflected in part the views of Mr. Fisher, and one or two others on the Fed’s policy making open market committee. They argue in effect that as prices for food and fuel outrun incomes, American workers will somehow find the bargaining power to get raises and their employers, in turn, will raise prices to offset the additional wage costs, setting off an inflationary wage-price spiral. That last happened during the first great oil crisis, in the 1970s, when workers had far more bargaining power than they do today.

Whatever the future holds, seven weeks after the policy makers’ last meeting, in late June, the surge in food and oil prices has not spread to the multitude of other items in the price index.

Indeed, oil prices have declined in the last two weeks. The economy, on the other hand, appears to have weakened, suggesting to most Wall Street forecasters that an increase in the federal funds rate  to reduce inflation pressures by slowing the economy  will not be forthcoming from the Fed until early next year.

“You can make the argument that the inflation risks are a little less than in June and the growth outlook a little worse,” an economist at Lehman Brothers, Michelle Meyer, said, adding: “We are starting to see signs that consumers are pulling back even faster than we expected. We thought the tax rebates would really boost consumption in the third quarter and we are not seeing that.”