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Inflation hit hard at the wholesale level in June, as producer prices surged a near-record amount from a year ago due to a big jump in energy costs, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Thursday.

The producer price index, a measure of the prices received for final demand products, increased 11.3% from a year ago, the highest reading since the record 11.6% in March.

Of that gain, almost 90% came from a 10% increase in final demand energy costs as prices for oil, natural gas and other products soared during the month.

Excluding energy, as well as food and trade service prices, so-called core PPI rose 6.4% on a 12-month basis, a deceleration from the 6.8% gain in May.

On a monthly basis, the core measure increased just 0.3%, below the 0.5% Dow Jones estimate. Headline PPI rose 1.1% on the month, higher than the 0.8% estimate.

The release comes one day after the BLS reported that the consumer price index, which measures final-sale prices in the marketplace, surged 9.1%, the highest 12-month gain since November 1981.

In a separate Labor Department report, weekly jobless claims rose to 244,000 for the week ended July 9, the highest number since Nov. 20, 2021. Continuing claims, which run a week behind the headline number, fell to 1.33 million, a decline of 41,000.

While there are signs the jobs market is weakening, the focus has been on inflation.

Energy and food prices have been particularly burdensome, but the June reports show price pressures are broadening.

There were a few optimistic signs in the PPI report — prices for chicken eggs, for instance, tumbled 30.2%, while iron and steel scrap prices were off 10.4%.

However, Federal Reserve officials are expected to keep pressing forward on interest rate hikes to bring inflation down closer to their longer-run 2% goal.

Following the CPI release, traders were pricing in an 86% chance the central bank, at its meeting later this month, will raise benchmark interest rates by a full percentage point. That would be the largest such increase since the early 1980s.

Shoppers paid sharply higher prices for a variety of goods in June as inflation kept its hold on a slowing U.S. economy, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported Wednesday.

The consumer price index, a broad measure of everyday goods and services related to the cost of living, soared 9.1% from a year ago, above the 8.8% Dow Jones estimate. That marked the fastest pace for inflation going back to November 1981.

Excluding volatile food and energy prices, so-called core CPI increased 5.9%, compared with the 5.7% estimate. Core inflation peaked at 6.5% in March and has been nudging down since.

On a monthly basis, headline CPI rose 1.3% and core CPI was up 0.7%, compared to respective estimates of 1.1% and 0.5%.

Taken together, the numbers seemed to counter the narrative that inflation may be peaking, as the gains were based across a variety of categories.

“CPI delivered another shock, and as painful as June’s higher number is, equally as bad is the broadening sources of inflation,” said Robert Frick, corporate economist at Navy Federal Credit Union. “Though CPI’s spike is led by energy and food prices, which are largely global problems, prices continue to mount for domestic goods and services, from shelter to autos to apparel.”

The inflation reading could push the Federal Reserve into an even more aggressive position.

Traders upped their bets on the pace of interest rate increases ahead. For the July 26-27 meeting, a full percentage point move now has a better than even chance of happening, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool as of 10:40 a.m. ET.

“U.S. inflation is above 9%, but it is the breadth of the price pressures that is really concerning for the Federal Reserve.” said James Knightley, ING’s chief international economist. “With supply conditions showing little sign of improvement the onus is the on the Fed to hit the brakes via higher rates to allow demand to better match supply conditions. The recession threat is rising.”

Energy prices surged 7.5% on the month and were up 41.6% on a 12-month basis. The food index increased 1%, while shelter costs, which make up about one-third of the CPI rose 0.6% for the month and were up 5.6% annually. This was the sixth straight month that food at home rose at least 1%.

Rental costs rose 0.8% in June, the largest monthly increase since April 1986, according to the BLS.

Stocks mostly slumped following the data while government bond yields surged.

Much of the inflation rise came from gasoline prices, which increased 11.2% on the month and just shy of 60% for the 12-month period. Electricity costs rose 1.7% and 13.7%, respectively. New and used vehicle prices posted respective monthly gains of 0.7% and 1.6%.

Medical-care costs climbed 0.7% on the month, propelled by a 1.9% increase in dental services, the largest monthly rise ever recorded for that sector in data that goes back to 1995.

Airline fares were one of the few areas seeing a decline, falling 1.8% in June though still up 34.1% from a year ago. The meat, poultry, fish and eggs category also dropped 0.4% for the month but is up 11.7% on an annual basis.

The increases marked another tough month for consumers, who have been suffering through soaring prices for everything from airline tickets to used cars to bacon and eggs.

For workers, the numbers meant another hit to the wallet, as inflation-adjusted incomes, based on average hourly earnings, fell 1% for the month and were down 3.6% from a year ago, according to a separate BLS release.

Policymakers have struggled to come up with answer to a situation that is rooted in multiple factors, including clogged supply chains, outsized demand for goods over services, and trillions of dollars in Covid-related stimulus spending that has made consumers both flush with cash and confronted with the highest prices since the early days of the Reagan administration.

Federal Reserve officials have instituted a series of interest rate increases that have taken benchmark short-term borrowing costs up by 1.5 percentage points. The central bank is expected to continue hiking until inflation comes closer to its 2% longer-run target rate.

White House officials have blamed the uptick in prices on Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, though inflation was already moving aggressively higher before that attack in February. President Joe Biden has called on gas station owners to lower prices.

The administration and leading Democrats also have blamed what they call greedy corporations for using the pandemic as an excuse to raise prices. After-tax corporate profits, however, have increased just 1.3% in aggregate since the second quarter of 2021, when inflation took hold.

In a statement following the report, Biden said “tackling inflation is my top priority,” and repeated previous calls for oil and gas companies to lower prices and Congress to vote on legislation he said will reduce costs for various products and services.

There is some reason to think the July inflation numbers will cool.

Gasoline prices have come down from their June peak, with a gallon of regular falling to $4.64, a 4.7% drop for the month, according to Energy Information Administration data.

The S&P GSCI commodities index, a broad-based measure of prices for multiple goods, has fallen 7.3% in July, though it remains up 17.2% for the year. That has come as wheat futures have fallen 8% since July 1, while soybeans are down 6% and corn is off 6.6% during the same period.

“I see a light at the end of the tunnel,” said Brian Antonellis, senior vice president of fleet operations for Fleet Advantage, a leasing and asset management company for the trucking industry based in Fort Lauderdale, Florida.

Antonellis expects production capacity to ramp up gradually, helping to create a more competitive environment for an industry that has felt the strain of rising fuel prices, a historically tight labor market and the supply chain issues that have hampered the ability to get products to shelves.

“For probably 10 to 15 years before the pandemic, the industry fell into a stable routine where costs up across the board somewhere between 1 to 3 percent a year. It was easy to budget, it was easy to forecast, it was easy to build into rates,” he said. “The challenge we face today is it’s not that 1-3 percent anymore, it’s 10 to 20 percent depending on what cost bucket you’re talking about.”

Still, he said trucking companies are managing to get through with pricing power and creative financing.

“I do think people honestly are not trying to overcharge the customer,” Antonellis said. “They’re not being predatory about it. But they are trying to find that fine line. What do we pass forward? How do we look at the costs coming in?”

With the U.S. economic picture getting increasingly cloudy, he acknowledged that the industry is not “recession-proof.”

“There are going to be challenges,” Antonellis said. “I don’t think it’s all negative. I do think there will be challenges for the next six months. But I do think we’re on an upswing.”

Correction: The June CPI gain was the strongest since November 1981. An earlier version misstated the month. The estimate for core CPI was 5.7%. An earlier version misstated the percentage.

A Federal Reserve economic survey released Wednesday pointed to elevated recession fears along with a belief that soaring inflation will last at least through the end of the year.

The central bank’s “Beige Book,” a collection of views from across its 12 districts, noted the economy is growing at just a “modest” pace since the last report in mid-May.

Along with that, business contacts reported a general slowdown in demand, with five of the districts expressing “concerns over an increased risk of recession.”

“Similar to the previous report, the outlook for future economic growth was mostly negative among reporting Districts, with contacts noting expectations for further weakening of demand over the next six to twelve months,” the report stated.

On inflation, which is running at its fastest annual rate since November 1981, the report found “substantial price increases” across the country. Prices in areas such as lumber and steel had moderated, but there were “significant” increases in food, energy and other commodities.

Companies, however, reported that they are still able to pass along the price increases to customers, a further inflationary sign.

“While several Districts noted concerns about cooling future demand, on balance, pricing power was steady, and in some sectors, such as travel and hospitality, firms were successful in passing through sizable price increases to customers with little to no pushback,” the Beige Book stated. “Most contacts expect pricing pressures to persist at least through the end of the year.”

Labor markets remained tight, though that had alleviated somewhat as demand fell. Companies in four districts said they were considering or had given bonuses to offset rising prices.

In two districts, workers were looking for higher pay to compensate for inflation that reached 9.1% year-over-year in June.

Recession fears have grown recently as consumers battered by higher prices have slowed activity and domestic investment has cooled. The economy contracted 1.6% in the first quarter, and the Atlanta Fed has GDP on pace to decline 1.2% in the second quarter, meeting the rule-of-thumb recession definition.

Responding to higher costs across the board, the Fed has instituted a series of rate hikes aimed at taming inflation.

Following Wednesday’s consumer price index report that also showed inflation excluding food and energy rose at a brisk 5.9% pace, traders upped their bets on a more aggressive Fed, now assigning an 83% probability that the central bank will hike benchmark borrowing rates a full point at its meeting later in July, according to CME Group data.

Atlanta President Raphael Bostic said Wednesday afternoon that “everything is in play” regarding potential rate increases and said a 100 basis point, or full percentage point, increase could be on the table for the July 26-27 meeting, according to a Reuters account.