US consumer price growth surpassed 8 per cent in March, its fastest pace since 1981 following a surge in the cost of energy and food, maintaining pressure on the Federal Reserve to take aggressive action to tackle inflation.

The consumer price index increased 8.5 per cent last month compared with a year ago, marginally above Wall Street’s expectations, the Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Tuesday. The monthly rise was 1.2 per cent, the fastest jump since September 2005 and a sharp acceleration from the 0.8 per cent increase recorded in February.

Once volatile items such as food and energy are stripped out, “core” CPI advanced 0.3 per cent in March. That was the slowest rise since September, but still translated to a 6.5 per cent annual increase.

Lael Brainard, a Fed governor awaiting Senate confirmation to be the next vice-chair, warned of “upside” risks to inflation, citing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine — which is fuelling energy and food costs — and new Covid-19 lockdowns in China that could worsen supply chain constraints.

“The economy has sustained now a number of these kinds of inflationary shocks from external events,” she said at a Wall Street Journal event. “We’ve seen a lot of resilience but we’ve also seen very high inflation.”