The vast majority of Americans share the concern of senior Federal Reserve Board officials that inflation is a very real threat in the year ahead, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national survey.

Eighty-four percent (84%) of adults are worried about the threat of rising prices. Nearly half (47%) rate themselves Very Worried.

Over half of Americans (54%) see high inflation as the bigger short-term problem for the U.S. economy, as opposed to 30% who view job creation that way. Similarly, 44% rate inflation as the larger long-term threat as well, but nearly as many (41%) see job growth as a bigger worry.

Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke last week warned the Senate Banking Committee of his concerns about inflation, a threat that Charles Plosser, the president of the Philadelphia Federal Reserve Bank, echoed just today (Tuesday). Plosser said a hike in interest rates will be necessary soon to check this threat.

“The economy will grow this year but at a slow pace, and the unemployment rate is likely to get worse before it gets better,” Plosser told a Philadelphia business group. “At the same time, inflation will be uncomfortably high for a while. I am more optimistic about the outlook for 2009. …”

Only 39% of Americans now think lower gas prices will end the short-term threat of high inflation. Slightly more (47%) believe a stronger U.S. dollar will be more effective.

Voters nationwide have told Rasmussen Reports that economic issues are their number one concern this campaign season, as opposed to national security which was at the top of the list for Election 2004.

In a survey released last week, Americans overwhelmingly felt that the steady rise in oil and gas prices was the most serious problem facing the economy, and little more than a third of them thought those prices were likely to be brought under control in the next few years.

Forty-eight percent of those surveyed in late June said reducing gas prices was the best cure for the ailing economy.

In June, consumer prices rose 1.1 percent, the second biggest increase in 25 years. The Fed now thinks that, thanks to climbing energy and food costs, prices could rise as much as 4.2% this year.

In the new survey, 54% of women rate themselves Very Worried about the threat of high inflation in the year ahead, versus 40% of men. Fifty-six percent (56%) of Democrats also feel that way, as opposed to only 37% of Republicans. Forty-five percent (45%) of unaffiliated voters class themselves as Very Worried, too.

Just over half of men, women, Republicans, Democrats and unaffiliateds believe that high inflation is the greater short-term threat to the economy.

Forty-four percent (44%) of men think reducing gas prices will end the short-term threat of inflation, compared to 35% of women. Forty-six percent of Republicans and 43% of unaffiliated voters also see lower gas prices as a solution, while only 32% of Democrats agree.

By similar margins, men (54%) are more confident than women (40%) that a stronger U.S. dollar will end the short-term threat of high inflation. Fifty-eight percent (58%) of Republican voters agree, compared to 37% of Democrats. Unaffiliateds again fall in the middle, with 48% who believe a stronger dollar means an end to the inflationary threat.

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