after having been an economic afterthought for decades

Question

This is an excerpt from an APNews article.

The Federal Reserve didn’t anticipate an inflation wave this severe or this persistent. In December 2020, the Fed’s policymakers had forecast that consumer inflation would stay below their 2% annual target and end 2021 at around 1.8%.

But after having been an economic afterthought for decades, high inflation reasserted itself last year with brutal speed. In February 2021, the government’s consumer price index was running just 1.7% ahead of its level a year earlier. From there, the year-over-year price increases accelerated steadily — 2.7% in March, 4.2% in April, 4.9% in May, 5.3% in June.

I wonder which of the following is the meaning of the part in bold.

1. after having been long forgotten,

2. as we always realized it later,

Answer 1

It is closer to the first meaning. However, an afterthought isn't really something that is "forgotten"; it is something that is given relatively little attention. (Economists paid more attention to other issues and paid less attention to high inflation.)