Powell, Jerome H
Good News on Jobs May Mean Bad News Later as Hiring Spree Defies Fed
America’s job market is remarkably strong, a report on Friday made clear, with unemployment at the lowest rate in half a century, wages rising fast and companies hiring at a breakneck pace. But the good news now could become a problem for President Biden later. Mr. Biden and his aides pointed to the hiring spree […]
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Fed’s Kashkari says officials are ‘a long way’ from backing off inflation fight.
Neel Kashkari, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, suggested on Friday that markets had gotten ahead of themselves in anticipating that the central bank — which has been raising interest rates swiftly this year — would soon begin to back off. “I’m surprised by markets’ interpretation,” Mr. Kashkari said in an interview. […]
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How U.S. Inflation Expectations Are Being Shaped by Consumer Choices
Economic policymakers are razor focused on inflation expectations after more than a year of rapid price increases. Consumers explain how they’re thinking about rising costs. July 27, 2022 Inflation started in the bacon aisle for Dan Burnett, a 58-year-old former medical center administrator who lives in Margaretville, N.Y. Last summer, he began to notice that […]
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How Will Interest Rate Increases Impact Inflation?
The Federal Reserve announced its fourth interest rate increase of 2022 on Wednesday as it races to tamp down rapid inflation. The moves have a lot of people wondering why rate increases — which raise the cost of borrowing money — are America’s main tool for cooling down prices. Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, […]
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Euro Hits Parity With U.S. Dollar for First Time in 20 Years
Take a look: €1 = $1. With a war on the eurozone’s border, an uncertain energy supply from Russia and a growing risk of recession, the pressures bearing down on the euro finally grew so strong that on Wednesday it briefly dipped below parity with the U.S. dollar — a one-to-one exchange rate. It was […]
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Strong Wage and Jobs Growth Keeps Fed on Track for Big Rate Increase
A surprisingly robust June employment report reinforced that America’s labor market remains historically strong even as recession warnings reach a fever pitch. But that development, while good news for the Biden administration, is likely to keep the Federal Reserve on its aggressive path of interest rate increases as it tries to cool the economy and […]
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Fed Confronts a ‘New World’ of Inflation
Federal Reserve officials are questioning whether their longstanding assumptions about inflation still apply as price gains remain stubbornly and surprisingly rapid — a bout of economic soul-searching that could have big implications for the American economy. For years, Fed policymakers had a playbook for handling inflation surprises: They mostly ignored disruptions to the supply of […]
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A Recession Would Hurt Democrats. Some Warn It’d Also Hurt Democracy.
Jerome Powell, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, made the understatement of the year on Wednesday when he noted offhandedly to reporters, “Clearly, people do not like inflation.” And how. According to Fox News’s latest national poll, 41 percent of registered voters said that “inflation and higher prices” represented the most important issue influencing their […]
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The Fed Raises Interest Rates by 0.75 Percentage Points to Tackle Inflation
The Federal Reserve took its most aggressive step yet to try to tame rapid and persistent inflation, raising interest rates by three-quarters of a percentage point on Wednesday and signaling that it is prepared to inflict economic pain to get prices under control. The rate increase was the central bank’s biggest since 1994 and could […]
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