The United States Federal Reserve (Fed) could, during the next meeting of its monetary committee in early May, raise its key rates faster than in March, in the face of high inflation, its chairman, Jerome Powell, said on Thursday.
A half percentage point rate hike “is on the table for the May meeting,” he said in a talk on the sidelines of IMF and World Bank meetings.
In mid-March, the fed began raising rates to counter high inflation, opting for a quarter-percentage-point hike. The range of rates was between 0.25 and 0.50 percent.
Powell He also noted that inflation may have peaked in March, “but we don’t know, so we’re not going to count on that.”
“We expected inflation to peak now and slow for the rest of the year and then again in 2023. Those expectations have disappointed in the past, and now we really want to see real progress,” he explained.
“We are also not going to rely on any improvements on the supply chain side,” he added. Powellthough that “would be great” and “extremely useful for a soft landing,” that is, being able to fight inflation without plunging the economy into recession.
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