The Federal Reserve appears to be creeping closer to an outcome that its own staff economists viewed as unlikely just six months ago: lowering inflation back to a normal range without plunging the economy into a recession.

Plenty could still go wrong. But inflation has come down notably in recent months — it is running at 3.1 percent on a yearly basis, down from a 9.1 percent peak in 2022. At the same time, growth is solid, consumers are spending, and employers continue to hire.

That combination has come as a surprise to economists. Many had predicted that cooling a red-hot job market with far more job openings than available workers would be a painful process. Instead, workers returned from the labor market sidelines to fill open spots, helping along a relatively painless rebalancing. At the same time, healing supply chains have helped to boost inventories and ease shortages. Goods prices have stopped pushing inflation higher, and have even begun to pull it down.