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Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday said inflation is going stay high in 2022, but he vowed the central bank will do whatever it takes to bring price rises under control.
The Fed raised interest rates for the first time in four years as part of a broader strategy to combat the highest inflation in 40 years. The rate of inflation has surged to almost 8% in the wake of the coronavirus pandemic.
Here’s what Powell said about inflation after the Fed decision.
- “We will take the necessary steps to ensure that high inflation does not become entrenched.”
- “We have to restore price stability.”
- Inflation is far, far above target.”
- “We’re fully committed to bring inflation back down. High inflation takes a toll on everybody.”
- “We do anticipate inflation will move back down. It may take longer than we’d like.”
- “We have the tools that we need and we are going to use them. We have a plan over the course of this year to raise interest rates steadily and also to run off the balance sheet.”
- “I guess I would say the expectation still is that inflation will come down in the second half of this year, but we still expect inflation to be high this year.”
- “We expect inflation to remain high through the middle of the year, begin to come down, then begin to come down more sharply next year.”
- “Before the invasion of Ukraine by Russia, I would have said that the expectation was that inflation would peak sometime in the first quarter. Maybe at the end of the first quarte of this year.”
- “Now we are already seeing a little bit of short-term upward pressure on inflation due to higher oil prices [and] other commodity prices.”
- “We’ve had price stability for a long time and maybe come to have taken it for granted. Now we see the pain. I am old enough to remember what high inflation is like.”
