美联储主席：远未达到缓解通胀的目标 将持续加息
2023-02-02 05:09:40
每经AI快讯，当地时间2月1日，美联储主席鲍威尔在美联储宣布加息25个基点后召开新闻发布会，表示虽然目前的数据显示，美国的通胀有所缓解，但是还远未达到目标，美联储仍将持续加息，坚定地致力于降低通胀。
鲍威尔表示，目前所看到的通胀紧缩并未以牺牲劳动力市场为代价，但是美国的经济形势仍处于缓解通胀的“早期阶段”，“工作尚未完全完成”，美联储也尚未采取“足够严格的政策立场”。鲍威尔在回答记者问题时同时表示，联邦基金利率“肯定有可能”保持在5%以下，但不要指望2023年会降息。
鲍威尔称，他有信心通胀率能够回落至2%，且不会出现严重的经济衰退，也不会导致失业率显著增加。（央视新闻）
Fed Chair Powell sees progress on inflation, though not quickly enough
WASHINGTON (AP) — Inflation may be cooling — just not yet fast enough for the Federal Reserve.
Chair Jerome Powell offered a nuanced view Wednesday of how the Fed intends to address its core challenge at a time when inflation is both way below its peak but still well above the central bank’s 2% target: Give it more time, and maybe some help from additional interest rate hikes.
Yet on a hopeful note, Powell also suggested that the trends that are needed to further slow inflation, from lower apartment rents to slower-growing wages, are starting to click into place.
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference following a Federal Open Market Committee meeting, Wednesday, June 14, 2023, at the Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington. (AP Photo/Jacquelyn Martin)
As a result, the Fed decided Wednesday to forgo another increase in its benchmark interest rate, leaving it at about 5.1%. The pause followed 10 straight hikes in 15 months — the fastest series of increases in four decades.
By leaving rates alone, at least for now, Powell and other top Fed officials hope to use the extra time to more fully assess how higher borrowing rates have affected inflation and the economy. They also want to see whether the collapse of three large banks this spring will weigh on lending and growth.
In a surprisingly hawkish signal, the Fed's policymakers issued projections Wednesday showing they envision as many as two additional quarter-point rate hikes before the year ends. (In Fed parlance, “hawks” generally favor higher rates to quell inflation, while “doves” typically advocate lower rates to aid a healthy job market.) Before this week’s policy meeting, Fed watchers had expected the policymakers to signal just one more rate increase this year.
In their new projections, the members of the Fed's interest-rate committee were less divided than many economists had expected, with 12 of the 18 policymakers foreseeing at least two more quarter-point rate increases. Four favored one quarter-point hike. Only two envisioned keeping rates unchanged. The policymakers also predicted that their benchmark rate will stay higher for longer than they envisioned three months ago.
Powell noted that wage growth has slowed and cited some signs that the job market is cooling. Those factors, he added, should reduce inflationary pressures.
"I would almost say that the conditions that we need to see in place to get inflation down are coming into place," Powell said. "But the process of that actually working on inflation is going to take some time.”
Inflation dropped to 4% in May compared with a year earlier, down sharply from a 9.1% peak last June. And many economists expect it to decline further. Rental costs are falling, and used car prices, which spiked in April and May, are also likely to drop.
Yet Powell underscored that the Fed will need to feel confident that inflation is moving steadily closer to its 2% target.
“We're two and a quarter years into this, and forecasters, including Fed forecasters, have consistently thought that inflation was about to turn down ... and been wrong,” he said. “We want to get inflation down to 2%, and we just don't see that yet.”
At the same time, Powell stopped short of saying the Fed’s policymakers have committed to resuming their hikes when they next meet in late July. At one point in the news conference, he referred to Wednesday's decision as a “skip,” which would imply that the Fed planned to raise rates at the July meeting.
He then corrected himself: “I shouldn’t call it a skip,” he said.
But Powell emphasized that the Fed wants to move more slowly after its breakneck pace last year, when it carried out four straight three-quarter-point hikes, followed by a half-point increase and then three quarter-point hikes this year.
The Fed's aggressive streak of rate hikes, which have made mortgages, auto loans, credit cards and business borrowing costlier, have been intended to slow spending and defeat the worst bout of inflation in four decades. Average credit card rates have surpassed 20% to a record high.
“Given how far we have come, it may make sense for rates to move higher but at a more moderate pace,” he said. “It’s just the idea that we're trying to get this right.”
