WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday that last week’s blockbuster U.S. jobs report showed it would likely take time to curb high inflation but that he expects a “significant decline” in inflation this year.
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At the same time, Powell said the job market’s strength and the persistence of inflation pressures mean that the Fed will need to keep raising its benchmark interest rate this year. He did not specify how many additional rate hikes he envisioned. But at a news conference last week, Powell had suggested that he envisioned “a couple” more hikes in 2023.
While inflation pressures are easing, the Fed chair cautioned that “these are the very early stages of disinflation. It has a long way to go.”
Powell’s remarks Tuesday followed the moderately optimistic note he struck at a news conference last week. Speaking to reporters then, Powell noted that high inflation had begun to ease and said he believed the Fed could tame spiking prices without causing a deep recession involving waves of layoffs.
But the Fed chair warned that the job market was still out of balance, with robust demand for labor and too-few workers in many industries leading employers to sharply raise wages, a trend that could help keep inflation high.
On Friday, the government issued a surprising blowout jobs report that suggested that the economy and hiring were even healthier than Fed officials thought. Employers added 517,000 jobs in January, the report said, nearly double December’s gain, and the unemployment rate reached 3.4%, the lowest level in 53 years.
And I have a bridge to sell you.
Raising the interest rate doesn’t lower inflation. It just adds additional cost which if anything would raise prices.
This is a rather simple and self-explanatory. You’ve gotta wonder how people believe this propaganda from the Fed when the truth is so obvious.
Get rid of the $15 an hour min wage laws and you’ll decrease inlfation. Who do you think pays for it when NY/ NJ make it $15 an hour? The consumer like duh. Think about it this way re food for example. The people who stock shleves at wholesale distributor warehouses need $15 an hour and the manager now needs $30 an hor bec he is a manager and can’t get the same as entry level. Then the wholesaler raises the prices on the grocery store. Now the cashier at the grocery stores and all the folks who stock its shleves also need to get paid more. So the owner pays more to the whole saler and his costs for his own employees are up to. Who pays for all that? The consumer . Now I pay more for grocieries . This is inflation 101. Simple solution is freeze all min wage $15 an hour rules