The consumer price index measured inflation at 4.2% in May. The June report comes out Tuesday. But whatever it shows, consumers have been dealing with already. Rather than look in the rearview mirror, consumers might be wondering what the future holds. As in, what sort of price changes they’ll be dealing with three, six, nine months from now. Especially because American consumers have had to choke down a lot of big price hikes recently.“Not happily, right, but yes, we've done it. The consumer, on average, has done it,” said Morgan Stanley Chief U.S. Economist Michael Gapen.He said tariffs and higher energy costs due to the war in the Middle East have already been baked into prices. So, he expects inflation to fall to 3.3% by the end of 2026.“There's a period of indigestion, but I think we're kind of at the peak right now, and we think we'll be on the other side of it going forward,” Gapen said.But the off-again, on-again war in the Middle East and the elevated oil prices that have come with it has Daraius Irani, an economist at Townon University, worried about future inflation — even if the conflict gets resolved tomorrow.“The Iranians … they may basically launch a rocket at a ship for whatever reason. Now that they realize that they can do it, they feel that they can use it for leverage,” he said.Irani said this creates uncertainty for ships traveling through the Strait of Hormuz. And since their safety isn’t guaranteed, shippers may have to pay more for insurance to account for increased risk.This could all trickle down to prices consumers pay.“It's not going to be like, ‘Oh my god, this is so much,’ but it's just one more added cost,” Irani said.Another source of inflation is a worker shortage across certain industries in the U.S. Specifically, ones where immigrants make up a big chunk of the labor force, said Fifth Third Commercial Bank Chief U.S. Economist Bill Adams.“Shortages of workers in agriculture and nursing services, home healthcare services, daycare services. Those are feeding through to inflationary pressures,” he said.If inflation does go up, the Federal Reserve could increase interest rates. In that case, not only will goods and services be more expensive, but the cost of borrowing will be, too.