Inflation has been cooling for two years, and fresh data released on Thursday showed that trend continued in September: Prices climbed just 2.1 percent compared with a year earlier.

That is nearly back to the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent inflation goal — good news for both the Fed and the White House — though the report also shows evidence that price increases remain stickier under the surface.

The closely watched inflation measure strips out food and fuel costs, which are volatile, to give a sense of the underlying trend in prices. That “core” index climbed 2.7 percent in September compared with a year earlier, matching the previous reading. And on a monthly basis, core inflation slightly accelerated.

The figures were largely in line with what economists had expected. The core numbers reinforce that while the Fed has made serious progress in bringing inflation back under control, it’s not entirely finished.

“There’s still more work to be done,” Omair Sharif, founder of the firm Inflation Insights, said ahead of the report. He added that inflation could look stubborn in coming months, which could give the Federal Reserve pause as it contemplates future rate cuts.

The Fed lifted interest rates sharply in 2022 and early 2023 to try to slow the economy and wrestle inflation under control. But officials slashed them by half a percentage point in September, cutting interest rates for the first time in four years.