Consumer prices, excluding the volatile food and energy components, soared well beyond the Federal Reserve’s 2 percent target in the year to June, reaching levels not seen since 1991 and reinforcing concerns about inflation. The so-called core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index, which excludes food and energy and is the Fed’s preferred method for gauging inflation, rose 3.5 percent in the 12 months to June, after rising 3.4 percent in the year to May, the Commerce Department said on Friday. The last time the core PCE inflation gauge saw a similar year-over-year vault was in July 1991. The Fed looks to core PCE as the key inflation gauge that informs its monetary policy, which has an inflation target of a longer-run average of 2 percent. While some economists have raised the alarm on inflation, Fed officials and members of the Biden administration have insisted that price rises are temporary, arguing that inflationary …