Fed's Powell expects inflation to bump up, but not get out of hand

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said prices would rise this year as the pandemic recedes and Americans are able to go out and spend, but he played down the risk that this would spur unwanted inflation.

 

“We do expect that inflation will move up over the course of this year,” Powell told the House Financial Services Committee on Tuesday, citing pent-up demand, supply-chain bottlenecks and the comparison with very weak price pressures last year. “Our best view is that the effect on inflation will be neither particularly large nor persistent.”

 

Powell is appearing before the committee along with Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen as part of Congressional oversight of the government’s response to the pandemic. Both policy makers are slated to testify again on Wednesday, to the Senate Banking Committee.

 

‘Highly Desirable’ gains behind modest jobs view

 

Powell said the central bank’s relatively muted forecast for lower unemployment this year — despite very strong expected growth — was actually disguising “highly desirable” labor market gains.

 

“We see participation expanding,” he told the Senate Banking Committee Wednesday, referring to the process where people who’re not currently being counted in the jobless rate reenter the labor force. “That holds the unemployment rate up — it is a highly desirable outcome.”