New Delhi, June 26 -- WASHINGTON - At gas stations across the United States last month, Americans paid more for a fill-up than at any point in three years. The Iran-Israel war's toll on the Strait of Hormuz, through which approximately one-fifth of the world's oil flows, produced a crude price surge that showed up first at the pump and arrived Thursday in the federal data the Federal Reserve watches more closely than any other.

The Bureau of Economic Analysis said personal spending climbed 0.7 percent in May, with energy goods surging $21 billion, the month's largest single category of spending increase. Prices, measured by the PCE index, rose 4.1 percent from a year earlier, matching the Wall Street estimate compiled by FactSet and reac...