WASHINGTON — If investors and financial analysts could ride in the back seat of Ben Bernanke's 1998 Chrysler Sebring convertible, many would be whining that familiar summer refrain: "Are we there yet?"

They'd hope to hear from the Federal Reserve chairman that the nation's central bank has reached its goal of bringing inflation under control. For months, Wall Street has been begging for a sign that the Fed is done raising interest rates to slow the economy, an inflation-fighting measure.

It isn't going to happen. As they meet today and tomorrow to review monetary policy, Bernanke and his Fed colleagues appear unlikely to declare victory, even though inflation has eased in recent months. On the contrary, they are likely to say they want inflation to keep falling and are concerned about the risk it could flare up again. That means they won't lower borrowing costs anytime soon.

Many investors and analysts cheered recently when they thought inflation had subsided. The central bank's preferred core inflation measure, which excludes food and energy prices, dipped in April to 2 percent. That is within the 1 percent to 2 percent range identified by Bernanke and others as their comfort zone for core inflation.

But that's still not good enough for some members of the Fed's top policymaking committee.

After years of focusing publicly on core inflation, its members are paying more attention to broader measures that include the cost of fuel and food. Those items have been long dismissed as too volatile to shed much light on long-term inflation trends — they can rise or fall rapidly in a short period.

But for nearly five years, food and fuel prices have done a lot more rising than falling, and some economists say they have become a sustained source of inflationary pressure.

Another factor is renewed interest in ethanol, which is causing increases in the price of the corn used to make it in the U.S.

In their meetings, members of the Fed's top policymaking committee are expected to discuss whether to highlight their concerns about overall inflation in a written statement — a step that could look like moving the goal posts to investors accustomed to the central bank's emphasis on core figures.

If the Fed shifts its focus from core inflation to overall inflation, "it would unnerve more than a few market participants," potentially causing mortgage rates and other long-term interest rates to rise, said David Shulman, senior economist with the Anderson Forecast at the University of California, Los Angeles.

"In our view, the Fed is at a critical juncture," said Laurence Meyer, a former Fed board member and now vice chairman of Macroeconomic Advisers. "It's important for the committee to make clear where it wants to go. Is it satisfied? Is it done? Or is it committed to moving inside the comfort zone" by forcing inflation lower?