By Annie Lowrey @ TheAtlantic.com, June 15

This week, the Federal Reserve decided to raise interest rates, a move intended to slow the economy down. It makes some sense. The current spell of growth has lasted for nearly 100 months. The jobless rate is down to 4.3 percent, and less than 2 percent in some metro areas. Wages are increasing, though not by much more than inflation. The monthly jobs numbers continue to look decent. As such, as expected, the Fed raised its benchmark rate by a quarter of a percentage point, from 1 to 1.25 percent.

But there is one main indicator that does not signal an economy getting hot—and it is one that the Fed is supposed to be keeping an eye on just as closely as it keeps an eye on employment. That is inflation. Price increases have proven remarkably, persistently sluggish [....]

This poses a quandary for the Fed, and about the Fed. Why is inflation so low if the economy looks so good, judging by other metrics? And why would the Fed raise rates—cooling the economy off and potentially keeping thousands of workers from joining the labor force, getting a gig, or getting a raise—given that inflation is so low? [....]

The root causes of today’s low rates of price growth might be mostly benign [....]