Powell indicates Fed won't wait until inflation is down to 2% before cutting rates
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Monday that the central bank will not wait until inflation hits 2% to cut interest rates.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Monday that the central bank will not wait until inflation hits 2% to cut interest rates.
Speaking at the Economic Club of Washington D.C., Powell referenced the idea that central bank policy works with “long and variable lags” to explain why the Fed wouldn’t wait for its target to be hit.
“The implication of that is that if you wait until inflation gets all the way down to 2%, you’ve probably waited too long, because the tightening that you’re doing, or the level of tightness that you have, is still having effects which will probably drive inflation below 2%,” Powell said.
Instead, the Fed is looking for “greater confidence” that inflation will return to the 2% level, Powell said.
“What increases that confidence in that is more good inflation data, and lately here we have been getting some of that,” he said.
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