With inflation nearly defeated and the job market cooling, the Federal Reserve is prepared to start cutting its key interest rate from its current 23-year high, Chair Jerome Powell said Friday.
The revised jobs report adds to evidence that the job market has been steadily slowing and likely reinforces the Federal Reserve’s plan to start cutting interest rates soon.
Chair Jerome Powell is slated to speak at the Federal Reserve’s annual, high-profile Jackson Hole conference.
Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said yesterday that the Fed needs to cut its key interest rate before the job market weakens further.
The turmoil shaking global financial markets partly reflects a sudden fear that the Federal Reserve may have held its key interest rate too high for too long, heightening the risk of a U.S. recession.
With the unemployment rate ticking higher for three months in a row, some economists have raised concerns that the Fed should cut rates more quickly later this year.
The first cut to their key interest rate in four years would be a major shift in policy that could eventually lower borrowing costs for U.S. consumers and businesses.
The Federal Reserve’s favored inflation measure remained low last month, bolstering evidence that price pressures are steadily cooling and setting the stage for the Fed to begin cutting interest rates this fall.
Inflation in the United States is slowing again after higher readings earlier this year, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday, while adding that more such evidence would be needed before the Fed would cut interest rates.
Led by lower food and auto prices, inflation in the United States cooled slightly last month after three elevated readings, likely offering a tentative sigh of relief for officials at the Federal Reserve and some borrowers.
The sharp interest rate hikes of the past two years will likely take longer than previously expected to bring down inflation, several Federal Reserve officials have said in recent comments, suggesting there may be few, if any, rate cuts this year.
Consumer inflation remained persistently high last month, boosted by gas, rents, auto insurance and other items, the government said Wednesday in a report that will likely give pause to the Federal Reserve as it weighs when and by how much to cut interest rates this year.
The Fed typically cuts only when the economy appears to be weakening and needs help. But with economic data looking strong – the commercial real estate sector aside – will its policymakers see a need to even cut at all?
With some investors and economists questioning whether the Federal Reserve can make good on interest rate cuts this year, the JPMorgan Chase CEO warned of the possibility of rates rising to 8 percent or higher.
Federal Reserve officials will likely reduce their benchmark interest rate later this year, Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday, despite recent reports showing that the U.S. economy is still strong and that U.S. inflation picked up in January and February.
In new quarterly projections they issued, Fed officials forecast that stronger growth and stubborn inflation would persist, meaning the central bank’s benchmark interest rate will stay higher for longer.
Two weeks ago, Chair Jerome Powell suggested that the Federal Reserve was “not far” from gaining the confidence it needed that inflation was headed sustainably down. It was a tantalizing suggestion.
Across the United States, many people are eagerly anticipating the Federal Reserve’s first cut to its benchmark interest rate this year: Prospective home buyers hope for lower mortgage rates. Housing developers looking to get shovels in the ground.
Several Federal Reserve policymakers warned Thursday against cutting U.S. interest rates too soon or by too much in the wake of recent data showing inflation stayed unexpectedly high in January.
The Fed chair also reiterated that the central bank’s next meeting in March was likely too soon for a rate cut. Most economists think the first cut is likely to come in May or June.
