根据美国国家统计局的数据，与前12个月相比，美国3月份的通货膨胀率上升了8.5%，这是自1981年以来的最高增幅劳工部消费者价格指数。

在2月和3月之间，通货膨胀率上升了1.2%，使得自2005年以来最大的月环比涨幅。

根据几位经济学家和其他金融专家的观点，经济中的高消费需求(伴随着低供给)是推动通货膨胀的主要因素。他们表示，乌克兰战争也在推高价格，尤其是石油和食品价格。

据接受ABC新闻采访的专家称，政府的干预是有限的。

专家还告诉ABC新闻，通货膨胀可能是未来几个月的一个问题，一位专家甚至表示，他们预计通货膨胀将持续数年。

推动通货膨胀的因素

消费者传统上把大部分钱花在服务上，但在疫情期间，需求转向了商品头脑货币媒体告诉ABC新闻。

“你看到了崩溃，你看到了制造商无法满足需求，你看到了制造商因为COVID而面临的挑战，然后你看到了供应链中断。这就是支撑这一切的东西，”提斯代尔说。

专家表示，强劲的消费需求无法满足充足的供应，这是通胀的主要驱动力。

“推高通胀的最大因素是异常强劲的需求，因为消费者在银行账户中有更多的钱，在股价上涨时借贷的利率更低，而且他们存了很多钱，因为他们在2020年没有花太多钱，”哈佛大学的实践教授杰森·弗曼说，他曾是巴拉克·奥巴马总统的首席经济学家和内阁成员。

“最近，由于俄罗斯总统弗拉基米尔·普京入侵乌克兰，油价上涨等因素加剧了这种情况，”弗曼补充道。

一些专家认为刺激资金加剧了需求的增长。

“我们向经济注入了大量需求，特别是在2021年初的美国救援计划，给了每个人1400美元，”布鲁金斯学会(Brookings)哈钦斯财政和货币政策中心(Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy)主任大卫·韦塞尔(David Wessel)说。

“事后看来，我们可能在人们的口袋里放了太多的钱——他们想花钱，但经济的供应端无法适应需求的快速增长，这种需求既来自财政刺激，也来自人们开始对疫情放松的事实，”韦塞尔说。

弗曼说，美国的通货膨胀比其他发达国家更严重，部分原因是政府的刺激资金。

“美国的通货膨胀率比任何其他主要发达经济体都高。可能是因为我们有了更大的财政对策。没有其他国家像我们这样大规模地寄出支票，”弗曼说。

其他专家同意刺激支付导致了通货膨胀，但是说大规模分散支付不是原因。政府发放了三轮补贴给美国人的支票在疫情期间作为财政救济，希望提振经济。

“你当然可以证明……刺激计划肯定会推高通胀率，但欧洲没有大规模的刺激计划。他们仍然期待7.5%的通胀，”经济和政策研究中心的高级经济学家和联合创始人迪安·贝克告诉美国广播公司新闻。

贝克说，俄罗斯入侵乌克兰正在推动天然气价格“飙升”，并引发人们对来自乌克兰的作物的担忧，乌克兰是全球主要的小麦出口国。

“人们真的很担心，其中很多不会被种植或无法出口。自战争结束后的两个月左右，我们已经看到小麦和许多其他农产品的价格大幅上涨。

政府能做什么

随着消费需求的增加成为通货膨胀的主要驱动力，专家们表示，政府在对抗通货膨胀方面无能为力，但他们同意美联储应该提高利率。

“对美联储来说，最重要的是提高利率，并开始抛售资产。这样做的目的是提高贷款买房、买车或购买厂房和设备的成本。这将冷却经济中的需求，减缓经济增长和通货膨胀，”弗曼说。

“它在多大程度上做到这些是难以置信的不确定，”他补充道。

贝克表示同意，并说“鉴于劳动力市场的强劲，零利率没有意义。”

贝克说，为了帮助降低油价，如果政府承诺在某种程度上支持石油市场，它可能会鼓励因2014年油价暴跌而受损的石油公司更快地提高产量。

“人们对此记忆犹新，因此不愿意一头钻进去。因此，试图应对这种情况的一个方法是拜登政府……可以做出承诺，他们将支持市场，”贝克说。

贝克说，这种承诺可能是，如果油价跌破一定水平，政府将购买石油来补充战略储备，从而支撑油价。

韦塞尔建议拜登政府也可以废除特朗普时代的关税这可能会压低进口商品的价格;提高税收;或者削减支出以拉动经济需求。

接下来会发生什么?

通胀可能仍是未来几个月的一个问题，但专家们对它能持续多久存在分歧。

“我在(消费者价格指数)中看到一些迹象，表明我们可能已经度过了最糟糕的时期，但我预计通胀率至少还会在未来18至24个月内保持高位，”韦塞尔说。

弗曼说，通货膨胀可能会持续数年。

“一些通胀可能是暂时的。我不认为经济中潜在的真实通胀率是8%。但可能也不是2%。因此通胀应该会开始下降一点，但不太可能接近美联储希望的水平，”弗曼说。

“未来几年，它很容易保持在高位。我们运气好的话，它会神奇地消失。[或者]我们可能会经历衰退，这可能会让它消失。我认为最有可能的情况是，这种情况会持续几年，”弗曼说。

“人们应该为利率上升做好准备，这样抵押贷款和汽车贷款就会变得更贵。他们应该做好价格居高不下的准备。不过，他们应该明白，这仍然是一个非常非常强劲的劳动力市场。所以有很多工作选择，”弗曼说。

What can the government do to stop or slow inflation?

Inflation in the U.S. rose 8.5% in March, compared with the prior 12 months, marking the highest increase since 1981, according to theLabor Department's Consumer Price Index.

Between February and March, inflation rose 1.2%, making for thebiggest month-to-month jump since 2005.

According to several economists and other financial experts, high consumer demand in the economy -- met with low supply -- is the main factor driving inflation. The war in Ukraine is also driving up prices, specifically on oil and food, they said.

And the government is limited on intervening, according to experts who spoke with ABC News.

Experts also told ABC News that inflation is likely to be an issue in the coming months, one even saying they expect it to last for years.

Factors driving inflation

Consumers traditionally spend the bulk of their money on services, but during the pandemic, demand shifted toward goods, Stacy Tisdale, financial journalist and founder ofMind Money Mediatold ABC News.

"You saw that breakdown, you saw manufacturers not be able to keep up with that demand, you saw the challenges that manufacturers were having, because of COVID, then you saw the supply chain disruptions. And that's kind of what's underpinning all of this," Tisdale said.

Strong consumer demand unmet with enough supply, makes for a main driver of inflation, experts said.

"The biggest factor driving up inflation has been extraordinarily strong demand, as consumers have more money in their bank accounts, lower interest rates to borrow at stronger stock prices and a lot of money they saved up because they didn't spend much in 2020," Jason Furman, a professor of practice at Harvard and a former top economic advisor to President Barack Obama who served as a chief economist and member of the cabinet, said.

"That's been exacerbated more recently by things like the higher oil prices due to [Russian President Vladimir] Putin's invasion of Ukraine," Furman added.

Some experts think stimulus money exacerbated the increased demand.

"We pumped a lot of demand into the economy, particularly the American Rescue Plan in early 2021, giving everybody $1,400," said David Wessel, the director of the Hutchins Center on Fiscal and Monetary Policy at Brookings.

"And with the benefit of hindsight, we probably put too much money in people's pockets -- they want to spend it, but the supply side of the economy is unable to accommodate the rapid increase in demand that comes both from the fiscal stimulus and from the fact that people are beginning to relax about the pandemic," Wessel said.

Furman said inflation in the U.S. is worse than in other developed nations, in part, because of stimulus funds from the government.

"The United States has more inflation than any other major advanced economy. Probably because we've had a larger fiscal response. No other countries sent out checks on the scale that we did," Furman said.

Other experts agree that stimulus payments contributed to inflation, but say the mass distributed payouts are not the cause. The government handed out three rounds ofchecks to Americansduring the pandemic as financial relief, in hopes of boosting the economy.

"You could certainly make the case … that the stimulus package definitely contributed to the inflation rate, but you didn't have big stimulus packages in Europe. And they're still looking at 7.5% inflation," Dean Baker, a senior economist and co-founder of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, told ABC News.

The Russian invasion of Ukraine is driving gas prices "through the roof" and creating concerns about crops coming out of Ukraine, which is a major global exporter of wheat, Baker said.

"There's real concerns that a lot of that isn't going to be planted or isn't able to be exported. And we've seen a big rise in the price of wheat, a number of other farm commodities in the last two months or so since the war," Baker said.

What the government can do

With increased consumer demand being the main driver of inflation, experts said there is not much the government can do to fight inflation, but they agree that the Federal Reserve should raise interest rates.

"The main thing is for the Fed to raise interest rates, and to start selling off assets. The goal of that is to make it more expensive to borrow money to buy a house or to buy a car, or for a business to buy plants and equipment. And that will cool off demand in the economy, slow economic growth and slow inflation," Furman said.

"How much it does any of those is incredibly uncertain," he added.

Baker agreed and said that "having a zero interest didn't make sense given the strength of the labor market."

To help bring down oil prices, Baker said if the government commits to supporting the oil market to some effect, it could encourage oil companies, who were burned by the 2014 collapse of oil prices, to drive up production faster.

"That's fresh enough in people's minds that they're reluctant to go headfirst into drilling. So one way to try to counter that is the Biden administration … could make a commitment that they'll support the market," Baker said.

Such a commitment could be that if oil prices fall below a certain amount, the government would buy barrels to restock the strategic reserve, and therefore support oil prices, Baker said.

Wessel suggested that the Biden administration could also repealTrump-era tariffs, which could drive down the price of imports; raise taxes; or cut spending to drive demand out of the economy.

What is to come?

Inflation could remain an issue for the coming months, but experts disagree on how long it could last.

"I saw some signs in the [Consumer Price Index] that suggests that we may be past the worse, but I expect inflation to be high at least for another 18 to 24 months," Wessel said.

Furman said that inflation could last for years.

"Some of the inflation is probably transitory. I don't think the underlying true inflation rate in the economy is 8%. But it probably isn't 2%, either. And so inflation should start to come down a bit, but it's unlikely to come anywhere near where the Fed wants it to come," Furman said.

"It easily could remain high for years to come. We could get lucky and it could just all magically disappear. [Or] we could have a recession, which could make it disappear. I think the most likely scenario though, is that it persists for several years," Furman said.

"People should be planning for interest rates going higher, so things like mortgages and car loans getting more expensive. They should plan on prices staying high. They should, though, understand that it's still a very, very strong labor market. So there's a lot of job options out there," Furman said.