U.S. inflation increased by the most in eight months in December amid robust consumer spending on goods and services, suggesting the Federal Reserve would probably be in no hurry to resume cutting interest rates soon.

The central bank needs to see further progress on inflation or weakness in the labor market to resume interest rate cuts.

A spike in energy prices helped to lift the headline PCE price index in December. The combined cost of gasoline, electricity, and other energy goods and services jumped 2.7% durin