UNDER PRESSURE: Fed chair nominee GRILLED over jobs, inflation at confirmation hearing
The U.S. economy is growing at a solid pace, but it faces challenges in the year ahead from repeated COVID-19 outbreaks, the hottest inflation in nearly four decades, a labor shortage and supply-chain bottlenecks."We are strongly committed to achieving our statutory goals of maximum employment and price stability," Powell said in his prepared testimony. "We will use our tools to support the economy and a strong labor market and to prevent higher inflation from becoming entrenched.
Republicans grilled Powell over his initial forecast that inflation would be transitory and would dissipate as pandemic-induced disruptions in the supply chain abated. Powell has since acknowledged that inflation has been higher and longer-lasting than the Fed anticipated, and has charted out a more hawkish path for the central bank to pull back its support for the economy.
Sen. Pat Toomey, R-Pa., questions Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin during a Congressional Oversight Commission hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., Thursday Dec. 10, 2020. The Fed began tapering its bond purchases in November by $15 billion a month, and announced during its December meeting that it would double that to $30 billion beginning in January. Under that timeframe, the central bank is poised to conclude the program by March, allowing Fed officials to begin hiking interest rates and reducing the $8.8 trillion balance sheet.
"Some are suggesting though that the Fed pull back on its support of the broader economy, and make it harder for people to get jobs," Brown, D-Ohio, said. "When people talk about ‘cooling off’ the economy, what they really mean is making it harder for people to find jobs and stopping paychecks from growing."
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