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U.S. consumer prices accelerated in January as Americans continued to be burdened by higher costs for rental housing and food, suggesting that the Federal Reserve was far from pausing its interest rate hiking campaign, Reuters reported. The report from the Labor Department on Tuesday also showed the pace of disinflation in the annual consumer price measures slowing last month. Still, the continued gradual slowdown in inflation likely keeps the Fed on a moderate interest rate hiking path. Sticky inflation and a stubbornly tight labor market have led some economists to expect that the U.S. central bank could continue hiking rates through summer. The consumer price index increased 0.5% last month after gaining 0.1% in December. A 0.7% rise in the cost of shelter, which mostly reflected rents, accounted for nearly half of the monthly increase in the CPI. Inflation was also boosted by rising gasoline prices, which rebounded 2.4% after declining for two straight months. Americans also paid more for natural gas and electricity. There were also increases in prices of food, which rose 0.5% after advancing 0.4% in December. The cost of food consumed at home climbed 0.4%, lifted by rising prices for meat, fish and eggs. Prices for cereals and bakery goods rose as did nonalcoholic beverages, but fruits and vegetables cost less.

The federal government allocated funds for distressed homeowners as part of its expansive efforts to help Americans cope with the pandemic’s financial strains. Unlike some other stimulus programs, such as checks mailed to individuals, this money moved slowly. The nearly $10 billion Homeowner Assistance Fund was administered through the U.S. Treasury Department, but relied heavily on individual states to set up programs to distribute aid, the Wall Street Journal reported. Some were slow to get up and running. Others struggled with a backlog of applications. For homeowners, getting money before the foreclosure went through could be a race against time. The fund doled out about $2 billion to more than 150,000 households through the end of September, according to the National Council of State Housing Agencies, a trade group. The money serves a narrow slice of the population: There were some 324,000 foreclosure filings last year, below prepandemic norms but more than double 2021, according to real-estate data firm Attom. The funds were made available to homeowners who experienced pandemic-related hardships and whose household incomes were below a certain threshold. Most states gave the money as grants. About 200 homeowners have complained about the program through the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau’s complaint portal, including a handful about foreclosures moving forward while they were waiting on assistance. CFPB warned in March that foreclosing on a borrower who has a pending assistance application “will merit increased scrutiny.” Government officials, as well as representatives of mortgage companies and states, said the assistance program has picked up speed, particularly in recent months, and everyone is working together. Servicers benefit more from taking the money than taking the home in a foreclosure, they said.

City National Bank, a unit of Royal Bank of Canada, agreed to commit more than $31 million to boost lending to Black and Hispanic home buyers in the Los Angeles area, in the U.S. Department of Justice's largest settlement over illegal redlining, Reuters reported. Yesterday's settlement was part of Attorney General Merrick Garland's Combatting Redlining Initiative, launched in Oct. 2021 to combat housing discrimination. The Justice Department accused City National of violating the federal Fair Housing Act by having "avoided" serving majority-Black and majority-Hispanic neighborhoods in the Los Angeles area between 2017 and 2020. City National, the largest bank based in Los Angeles, was accused of letting staff generate loan applications largely from its disproportionately white customer base instead of reaching out to Black and Hispanic people, and ignoring internal reports that suggested shortcomings in its fair lending practices. The complaint said just 7% of City National's residential mortgage loans in the region went to residents of majority-Black and Hispanic census tracts, compared with 44% of loans by its peers, and that more loans in those tracts went to white people. Under a five-year consent order, City National will commit at least $29.5 million, with the goal of making mortgage and home improvement loans more widely available in majority-Black and Hispanic neighborhoods.