The fight against inflation, at a maximum in 40 years in the United States, could affect economic growth and employment, warned on Thursday the president of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, after being confirmed for a second term as head of the central bank.
“Return the inflation to 2% (ndlr, the Fed’s target), it will be painful, but ultimately, the most painful thing would be to fail to contain it and for it to remain anchored at high levels,” Powell said in an interview on public radio after being confirmed by the Senate.
The president of the fed Until now, he had expressed confidence that the body could stop inflation without slowing growth. “We have the tools,” she hammered away.
“Our goal, of course, is to bring inflation down to 2% without the economy going into recession, and while maintaining a fairly strong job market,” he said.
But things could be more complicated than expected. “The question of whether or not we’ll be able to make a soft landing depends on factors that we don’t control,” she said.
The Fed began raising its interest rates to contain the demand in March, to take them last week to 0.75-1 percent.
New increases are to be expected in the rest of the year.
“If the economy evolves more or less as we expect, it would be appropriate that there be additional hikes of 50 basis points (ndlr, half a percentage point) in the next two meetings” of the monetary policy committee, he stressed Powelladding that “if things go better than expected, we are ready to do less. If things go worse, we are ready to do more.”
The United States Senate on Thursday confirmed Powell for a second term as head of the Senate. Federal Reserve.
With an increase of 8.3% in 12 months to April, inflation exceeded analysts’ expectations and remains close to a maximum in 40 years.
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