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    Powell Says Fed Could Finish Bond-Buying Taper Early

    Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, signaled on Tuesday that the central bank was growing more concerned about high — and stubborn — inflation, and could speed up its plan to withdraw financial support from the economy as it tries to ensure that rapid price gains do not become long-lasting.Mr. Powell, whom President Biden plans to renominate for a second term, testified before the Senate Banking Committee at a fraught economic moment. Inflation has jumped to its highest level in three decades and a new coronavirus variant, Omicron, threatens to keep the economy from returning to normal, potentially dragging out supply and demand mismatches. Yet millions of workers are still missing from the job market — and the health threat could keep them on the sidelines.As arguably the nation’s most important economic policymaker, Mr. Powell must navigate that divide. His comments Tuesday suggested that he was preparing to do it with an eye more firmly focused on the threat of inflation.That could mean ending the Fed’s bond-buying program sooner than expected. The central bank had been buying $120 billion in government-backed securities each month throughout much of the pandemic to bolster the economy by keeping money flowing in financial markets. In November, officials announced plans to slow those purchases by $15 billion a month, which would have the program ending midway through 2022. But Mr. Powell said the central bank could wrap up more quickly, reducing the amount of economic juice the Fed is adding.“At this point, the economy is very strong, and inflationary pressures are high,” he said. “It is therefore appropriate in my view to consider wrapping up the taper of our asset purchases, which we actually announced at our November meeting, perhaps a few months sooner.”His comments further rattled investors, who had already been fretting about Omicron’s potential impact. Stocks, which had been down roughly 0.5 percent for much of the morning, tumbled after Mr. Powell’s comments and the S&P closed down 1.9 percent. Short-term bond yields, which are heavily influenced by expectations for Fed rate increases, spiked as investors began to expect what is sometimes referred to as a “hawkish,” or aggressive approach to interest rate policy.“The tone of his remarks was notably hawkish, suggesting that the Fed’s primary focus is on the risk of more persistent excess inflation,” Krishna Guha, an economist at Evercore ISI, wrote in a research note reacting to the testimony.Mr. Powell said he expected Fed officials to discuss slowing bond purchases faster “at our upcoming meeting,” which is scheduled for Dec. 14-15. He stressed that between now and then, policymakers will get a better sense of the new Omicron virus variant, a fresh labor market report and updated inflation numbers.While he emphasized that much is unknown about Omicron, he said experts could get a better sense of it “in about a month,” and will know at least something about the risks “within a week or 10 days.”For now, he focused on the risk the central bank has already come to know: rapid price gains. Inflation is running at its fastest pace since the early 1990s in the United States, and prices have picked up in Europe and across many other advanced economies as booming consumer demand runs into sharply constrained supply. In the eurozone, annual inflation jumped to 4.9 percent, according to data released Tuesday, the highest since records began in 1997. Global factory shutdowns, clogged ports and unusual shipping patterns have driven shortages in couches, cars and computer chips.Fed officials had for months predicted that the snarls would clear and price gains would fade. Instead, they have broadened — and that has made central bankers like Mr. Powell increasingly worried.“Generally, the higher prices we’re seeing are related to the supply-and-demand imbalances that can be traced directly back to the pandemic and the reopening of the economy, but it’s also the case that price increases have spread much more broadly in the recent few months,” Mr. Powell said Tuesday. “I think the risk of higher inflation has increased.”Monetary policymakers had spent recent months focused on helping the economy to heal, hoping to pull the millions of workers still missing from the job market back into work.To that end, the Fed’s policy interest rate, its more traditional and more powerful tool, has remained set to near zero. Officials had been stressing that they would be patient in pulling back that support and cooling down the economy, giving missing employees more time to return.But their tone appears to be shifting as prices for food, rent and goods are jumping.The Federal Reserve chair, Jerome H. Powell, and Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen appeared at a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Tuesday.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesSlowing bond purchases quickly would put officials in a position to raise borrowing costs sooner than previously forecast. Lifting interest rates earlier or faster would pump the economic brakes, helping to slow home-building, business expansions and consumer spending. Weakening demand would in turn help to weigh down prices over time.By trying to rein in price increases, the Fed would probably slow hiring. Doing so could be painful while people still remain out of work partly out of virus fears or a lack of child care.That’s why Omicron could pose such a big challenge. If the new variant shuts down factories and slows shipping routes while keeping would-be job applicants at home, it could put the Fed in a tough spot. Central bank policymakers are supposed to foster both full employment and keep prices stable, and such a situation would force them to choose between those goals.Mr. Powell’s willingness to pull back support faster despite the new variant — and his full-throated recognition that price gains are not poised to be as short-lived as officials had once hoped — caught investors’ attention.Understand the Supply Chain CrisisCard 1 of 5Covid’s impact on the supply chain continues. More

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    Biden Will Keep Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve Chair

    WASHINGTON — President Biden said Monday that he would renominate Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, to another four-year term, opting for policy continuity at a moment of rapid inflation and economic uncertainty and betting that the Fed will do more to help workers reap the gains of the pandemic recovery.The much-awaited decision was a return to tradition in which the central bank’s top official is reappointed regardless of partisan identity — a norm bucked by former President Donald J. Trump, who appointed Mr. Powell instead of renominating Janet L. Yellen.While some progressive Democrats criticized Mr. Powell’s reappointment, the move was primarily greeted with bipartisan praise that suggested an easy path to confirmation.Mr. Biden also said he planned to nominate Lael Brainard, a Fed governor whom many progressive groups had championed to replace Mr. Powell, to serve as the Fed’s vice chair, a move that helped mollify some criticism on the left.The president and his top aides believe that Mr. Powell has done well in supporting the economy through the pandemic recession and a halting recovery, while amassing credibility by standing up to political pressure from Mr. Trump. But Mr. Biden is also making a calculated bet that the Fed chair will be more aligned with his views on the economy and, in particular, inflation, than he is with Republicans in the Senate who have demanded quicker action from the Fed to tamp down rising prices.“At this moment, of both enormous potential and enormous uncertainty for our economy we need stability and independence at the Federal Reserve,” Mr. Biden said during remarks at the White House. “And we need people of character and integrity, who can be trusted to keep their focus on the right long-term goals of our country, for our country.”The stakes in the choice are unusually high.Inflation has jumped because of booming consumer demand, tangled supply lines and labor shortages that have helped to push up the cost of used cars, couches and even food and rent. Yet millions of workers are missing from the labor market compared with before the pandemic.The central bank is charged with keeping consumer prices stable while striving for maximum employment, and striking that balance could require difficult policy choices in the months ahead.Mr. Biden, who is facing a delicate balancing act within his own party, deliberated over the pick for months. He consulted with both progressive and moderate Democrats along the way, seeking their views on inflation, worker considerations, financial regulation and climate change policy at the Fed.That included Senator Elizabeth Warren, who had called Mr. Powell “a dangerous man,” and suggested she would not support his renomination during a testy hearing in late September. Mr. Biden met with Ms. Warren on Nov. 9 in the Oval Office to discuss Fed appointments and called her last Thursday, before he had settled on a pick, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions.On Friday, Mr. Biden called Mr. Powell and Ms. Brainard to inform them that he had made his choice. The decision was influenced in large part by Mr. Biden’s belief that he and Mr. Powell are philosophically aligned when it comes to keeping interest rates low and continuing to support the economy until more people are working and wages are rising.On Monday, Mr. Biden said he believed the Fed had more work to do to get to “maximum employment.”“That’s an economy where companies have to compete to attract workers, instead of workers competing with each other for jobs, where American workers get steady wage increases after decades of stagnation, and where the benefits of economic growth are broadly shared by everyone in the country, not just concentrated for those at the top,” he said.Yet some economists, and many Republicans, say the Fed runs the risk of allowing inflation to spin out of control if it does not start to pull back efforts to fuel economic growth, with workers demanding increasingly higher wage increases to cover rising costs, resulting in 1970s-style inflation.Mr. Biden has been suffering politically as prices rise for food, gas and airplane tickets. The president has repeatedly tried to reassure Americans that his economic policies will ultimately calm inflation, a message he is expected to repeat during remarks on Tuesday.But his larger economic agenda has become tangled in the politics of price increases, particularly as the president pushes Senate Democrats to coalesce around a $2.2 trillion climate change and social policy bill that Mr. Biden says will ease inflationary pressures in years to come but Republicans warn will stoke higher prices immediately.Mr. Biden said he was certain that both Mr. Powell and Ms. Brainard would work to stabilize inflation and keep the economic recovery on track.“We’re in a position to attack inflation from the position of strength, not weakness,” he said.Mr. Powell, who appeared alongside the president and Ms. Brainard at the White House, acknowledged the challenge ahead.“We know that high inflation takes a toll on families, especially those less able to meet the higher costs of essentials like food, housing and transportation,” he said, adding that the Fed would “use our tools both to support the economy and a strong labor market and to prevent higher inflation from becoming entrenched.”Mr. Powell’s reappointment suggests that the White House, which has a chance to fully reshape the Fed, is not aiming to completely overhaul the institution.The Biden administration already has one vacant governor role to fill, and two more seats will open early next year, giving Mr. Biden room to appoint at least three of seven governors. The president must also fill several leadership roles, including the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, a powerful position given its influence on bank oversight.Mr. Biden has been under pressure from progressives and moderate Democrats to pick a diverse slate of leaders for the Fed who would prioritize tough bank regulation and do what they could to address climate change risks in the financial system.Lael Brainard is the president’s choice to be the Federal Reserve’s vice chair.Justin T. Gellerson for The New York TimesMr. Powell has faced opposition from some progressive Democrats, who have faulted him for not using the Fed’s tools to help combat climate change and for voting to loosen financial rules for the nation’s biggest banks.He has also come under criticism for an ethics scandal that took place while he was overseeing the central bank. Two of the Fed’s 12 regional presidents made significant financial trades for their private accounts in 2020, when the Fed was actively rescuing many markets from pandemic fallout.Mr. Biden tried to ease at least some of those concerns, saying that Mr. Powell had assured him that the Fed would “accelerate” efforts to address and mitigate the risk that climate change poses to the economy.Mr. Biden also said he planned to soon nominate a new vice chair for supervision. In conversations with Mr. Biden, Mr. Powell convinced the president he would follow the lead of that person in setting financial regulatory policy, according to people with knowledge of the matter.Whether that will be enough to appease Mr. Powell’s critics remains to be seen. Ms. Warren said in a statement on Monday that she would not vote for Mr. Powell’s confirmation. Still, she did not recount her litany of concerns about him.Another critic, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who opposed Mr. Powell’s reappointment, said on Monday that was “disappointed” in Mr. Biden’s decision. But he did not say whether he would vote no on his nomination.“I sincerely hope that, if confirmed, Powell will reassess his past opposition to utilizing the Fed’s regulatory tools to minimize climate-related risks to the financial sector,” he said.Other Democrats were more supportive, including Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who praised Mr. Powell for helping steer the economy through the pandemic. Mr. Brown’s position is important — he is the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, which oversees the Fed and will handle the confirmation hearings for both Mr. Powell and Ms. Brainard.Republicans, who supported Mr. Powell when he was nominated as chair by Mr. Trump, also lauded Mr. Biden’s decision.Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania and the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, released a statement saying he would support Mr. Powell’s nomination, as did several other of his party’s senators. That full-throated support did not extend to Ms. Brainard, however, with Mr. Toomey and other Republicans saying they had some concerns about her views on financial regulation and other issues.The big challenge ahead for Mr. Powell is deciding when — and how quickly — to remove pandemic-era economic support that the central bank has been using to cushion workers, businesses and financial markets.The Fed has so far decided to slow its large bond-purchase program, a first step toward withdrawing monetary policy support that will leave it more nimble to raise interest rates next year if reining in the economy becomes necessary.The federal funds rate has been set to near-zero since March 2020, keeping many types of borrowing cheap and helping to fuel home and car purchases and other types of demand that in turn set the stage for strong hiring. Raising it could cool off growth and weaken inflation.Yet trying to slow price gains would come at a cost. Workers are still trickling back after severe job losses at the onset of the pandemic, and the Fed is hoping to give the job market more space and time to heal. That’s especially true because continued waves of infection may be keeping many people from searching for work, either out of health concerns or because they lack child care. More

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    Biden Renominates Powell as Fed Chair

    Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world.Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world. More

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    Behind the Powell Pick: A Bet the Economy Has Room to Grow

    President Biden’s decision to renominate Jerome H. Powell to head the Federal Reserve reflects the president’s belief that despite high inflation, America’s economy still has a long way to go to deliver strong gains to women, Black and Hispanic Americans and low-wage workers trying to climb into the middle class.Mr. Biden made clear during a White House appearance that he believes Mr. Powell is philosophically aligned with his vision that the central bank needs to keep interest rates low and continue supporting the economy until it reaches maximum employment.“That’s an economy where companies have to compete to attract workers, instead of workers competing with each other for jobs, where American workers get steady wage increases after decades of stagnation, and where the benefits of economic growth are broadly shared by everyone in the country, not just concentrated for those at the top,” Mr. Biden said Monday.The president’s decision is also based on his belief that Mr. Powell and Lael Brainard, the Fed governor whom Mr. Biden nominated for vice chair on Monday, share his views on stabilizing inflation while being careful not to snuff out the recovery before the labor market heals.It is a gamble on several fronts for the president. He is betting that Mr. Powell will be more aligned with his views on the economy than he is with Republicans in the Senate who have decried rising inflation for months and demanded action from the Fed. Many of those Republicans endorsed Mr. Powell quickly on Monday, expressing hope that he would act swiftly to combat inflation.The president is also betting that his team is correct in its economic diagnosis that the inflation risk is fading and marginalized groups of workers still need help to reap the full gains of economic growth.Mr. Biden and his aides view the recent burst of inflation, which surged to its highest levels in three decades last month, as largely the product of crimps in global supply chains — and not a function of monetary policy that necessitates quick rate increases from the central bank.The decision to renominate Mr. Powell and to elevate Ms. Brainard is the sum of a wide range of political and economic calculations. Chief among them was choosing the chair with the desire, and bipartisan support, to pursue full employment.But administration officials say other considerations also favored Mr. Powell’s reappointment, like the need to maintain central bank stability in the midst of the economic disruption of a pandemic and the record of independence that Mr. Powell built over a four-year term that included withering criticism from former President Donald J. Trump, who appointed him to the chairmanship.Mr. Powell also appears to have defused, in the eyes of the president and his aides, liberal Democrats’ concerns that on his watch the Fed has not regulated big banks and other financial institutions stringently enough. In conversations with Mr. Biden leading up to the decision, Mr. Powell convinced the president he would follow the lead of the Fed’s vice president for supervision — an open position that Mr. Biden has yet to fill — in determining the central bank’s policies on financial regulations.Mr. Biden is expected to announce his pick for that job early next month, and Democrats expect him to nominate someone who will take a hard line on banks, a key demand of Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a progressive who opposes Mr. Powell’s renomination and has called him “dangerous.” Mr. Biden recently discussed his Fed picks with Ms. Warren, and he has been in regular contact with Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the Democrat who leads the banking committee. More

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    Elizabeth Warren Says She Will Oppose Jerome Powell’s Nomination

    Senator Elizabeth Warren, the Massachusetts Democrat, said on Monday that she would not vote to confirm Jerome H. Powell for a second term as chair of the Federal Reserve, citing “failures on regulation, climate and ethics.”Ms. Warren, who has called Mr. Powell “a dangerous man,” had been pushing for President Biden to name Lael Brainard as the next chair of the central bank. Mr. Biden’s decision to name Ms. Brainard to the No. 2 spot at the Fed drew Ms. Warren’s support but she said she would continue to push for additional governors who support aggressive financial regulation.“It’s no secret I oppose Chair Jerome Powell’s renomination, and I will vote against him,” Ms. Warren said in a statement.Other powerful Democrats, along with Republican lawmakers expressed. support for Mr. Biden’s decision, saying it would keep the central bank on a steady course and protect its political independence at a time of inflation and economic uncertainty for the country.Senator Sherrod Brown, Democrat of Ohio and the chair of the Senate Banking Committee, which oversees the Fed, praised Mr. Powell’s role in helping the labor market heal from the pandemic downturn and giving workers greater bargaining power in terms of higher wages.“The Federal Reserve must continue to help steer our economic recovery in the right direction — toward full employment and an economy that empowers workers and their families,” Mr. Brown said. “I look forward to working with Powell to stand up to Wall Street and stand up for workers, so that they share in the prosperity they create.”Senator Jon Tester, a Montana Democrat, said on Twitter that the decision “a smart move.”Mr. Biden’s decision to reappoint Mr. Powell, who was first appointed by former President Donald J. Trump, returns the country to a long tradition in which presidents of both parties have embraced the Fed chairs selected by their predecessors, in an expression of support for the central bank’s political independence. Mr. Trump bucked the tradition, replacing Janet L. Yellen with Mr. Powell in 2018.Some progressive Democrats had urged Mr. Biden to also break with tradition and appoint someone else to the role. In addition to Ms. Warren, Senators Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island and Jeff Merkley of Oregon had called for Mr. Powell to be replaced, citing his views on climate change, financial regulation and an ethics scandal at the central bank.Mr. Whitehouse said in a statement on Monday that he was “disappointed” in the decision, adding that Mr. Powell had done too little to address climate change.“Our Fed Chair must devote immediate and thorough attention to the climate threat before it is too late,” Mr. Whitehouse said in the statement. “I sincerely hope that, if confirmed, Powell will reassess his past opposition to utilizing the Fed’s regulatory tools to minimize climate-related risks to the financial sector.”Americans for Financial Reform, a coalition of community, labor and civil rights groups, called the decision “a major disappointment to those of us who have fought for tougher regulation of Wall Street.”Mr. Biden’s decision to nominate Ms. Brainard for vice chair could help mollify some of those concerns. Some progressive groups had been pushing for Ms. Brainard to lead the central bank, in part because of her views on climate change and financial regulation.Mr. Whitehouse applauded Ms. Brainard’s nomination in his statement, saying “she clearly recognizes the gravity of the climate-related financial and economic risks facing our nation and will push the Fed to fully utilize its regulatory authorities in this space.”Other groups that have been critical of the Fed expressed support for the picks, particularly Ms. Brainard.The Fed Up Campaign, which advocates more accommodative monetary policies and full employment, said the Fed needed “to continue pro-employment, pro-wage growth, pro-racial justice macroeconomic policies for as long as economic conditions allow.”“Governor Brainard is a strong choice for Vice Chair, and we are expecting Biden to continue to name truly bold and pro-worker choices to the vacant governor seats,” the group said.Lawmakers also expressed support for the move, though some Republicans expressed concerns about Ms. Brainard, who has pushed for tougher financial regulations.Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, said that he disagreed with some of Mr. Powell’s decisions during the crisis, but that he would support his nomination.“When the pandemic hit in 2020, Chairman Powell acted swiftly and took extraordinary and necessary steps to help stabilize financial markets and the economy,” Mr. Toomey said in a statement.The senator expressed “concerns about regulatory policies that Governor Brainard would support as Vice Chair,” but said looked forward to discussing those issues.Both Mr. Powell and Ms. Brainard must win 60 votes in order to be confirmed by the Senate. More

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    Labor force participation is static, a conundrum for the Fed.

    Millions of employees remain on the job market’s sidelines and are only slowly trickling back — posing a serious challenge for the Federal Reserve as its policymakers try to assess how far the United States economy remains from their full employment goal.The labor force participation rate, a measure of how many people work or are actively looking for jobs, has been holding steady for months at 61.6 percent, down 1.7 percentage points from its February 2020 level.Participation of people in their prime working years is ticking up gradually, rising to 81.7 percent in October from 81.6 percent in September, but that too remains depressed compared with the rate before the pandemic. In February 2020, 82.9 percent of those 25 to 54 years old were in the labor force.Prime-age labor force participation improved slightly.Share of those ages 25 to 54 who are in the labor force (employed, unemployed but looking for work or on temporary layoff) More

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    Federal Reserve Announces Plan to Slow Bond Buying Program

    The Federal Reserve is dealing with high inflation at a time when millions of workers remain on the job market’s sidelines. Wednesday’s announcement that it will slow bond purchases is a step toward more normal monetary policy.Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, laid out a plan to slow the asset-buying program as the economy continued to heal from pandemic disruptions and inflation remained sharply elevated.Sarahbeth Maney/The New York TimesThe Federal Reserve on Wednesday took its first step toward withdrawing support for the American economy, saying that it would begin to wind down a stimulus program that’s been in place since early in the pandemic as the economy heals and prices climb at an uncomfortably rapid pace.Central bank policymakers struck a slightly more wary tone about inflation, which has jumped this year amid booming consumer demand for goods and supply snarls. While officials still expect quick cost increases to fade, how quickly that will happen is unclear.Fed officials want to be prepared for any outcome at a time when the economy’s trajectory is marked by grave uncertainty. They are not sure when prices will begin to calm down, to what extent the labor market will recover the millions of jobs still missing after last year’s economic slump, or when they will begin to raise interest rates — which remain at rock-bottom to keep borrowing and spending cheap and easy.So the central bank’s decision to dial back its other policy tool, large-scale bond purchases that keep money flowing through financial markets, was meant to give the Fed flexibility it might need to react to a shifting situation. Officials on Wednesday laid out a plan to slow their $120 billion in monthly Treasury bond and mortgage-backed security purchases by $15 billion a month starting in November. The purchases can lower long term interest rates and prod investors into investments that would spur growth.Assuming that pace holds, the bond buying would stop altogether around the time of the central bank’s meeting next June — potentially putting the Fed in a position to lift interest rates by the middle of next year.The Fed is not yet saying that higher rates, a powerful tool that can swiftly slow demand and work to offset inflation, are imminent. Policymakers would prefer to leave them low for some time to allow the labor market to heal as much as possible.But the move announced on Wednesday will leave them more nimble to react if inflation remains sharply elevated into 2022 instead of beginning to moderate. Many officials would not want to lift interest rates while they are still buying bonds, because doing so would mean that one tool was stoking the economy while the other was restraining it.“We think we can be patient,” Jerome H. Powell, the Fed’s chair, said of the path ahead for interest rates. “If a response is called for, we will not hesitate.”Congress has given the Fed two jobs: achieving and maintaining stable prices and maximum employment.Those are tricky tasks in 2021. Twenty months into the global coronavirus pandemic, inflation has shot higher, with prices climbing 4.4 percent in the year through September. That is well above the 2 percent price gains the Fed aims for on average over time.At the same time, far fewer people are working than did before the pandemic. About five million jobs are missing compared to February 2020. But that shortfall is hard to interpret, because businesses across the country are struggling to fill open positions and wages are quickly rising, hallmarks of a strong job market.For now, the Fed is betting that inflation will fade and the labor market will lure back workers, who might be lingering on the sidelines to avoid catching the coronavirus or because they have child care or other issues that are keeping them at home.“There’s room for a whole lot of humility here,” Mr. Powell said, explaining that it was hard to assess how quickly the employment rate might recover. “It’s a complicated situation.”Officials have already been surprised this year by how much inflation has surged and how long that pop has lasted. They had expected some run-up in prices as the cost of dining out and air travel bounced back from pandemic-lockdown lows, but the severity of the supply chain disruptions and the continued strength of consumer demand has caught Fed officials and many economists by surprise.In their November policy statement, Fed officials predicted that this burst of inflation would fade, but they toned down their confidence on that view. They said previously that factors causing elevated inflation were transitory, but they updated that language on Wednesday to say that the drivers were “expected to be” transitory, acknowledging growing uncertainty.“Supply and demand imbalances related to the pandemic and the reopening of the economy have contributed to sizable price increases in some sectors,” the statement added.The Fed is willing to tolerate a temporary bout of quick inflation as the economy reopens from the pandemic, but if consumers and businesses come to expect persistently higher prices, that could spell trouble. High and erratic inflation that persists would make it hard for businesses to plan and might eat away at wage increases for workers who lack bargaining power.“We have to be aware of the risks — particularly now the risk of significantly higher inflation,” Mr. Powell said. “And we have to be in position to address that risk should it create a threat of more-persistent, longer-term inflation.”Understand the Supply Chain CrisisCard 1 of 5Covid’s impact on the supply chain continues. More

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    Fed Plans to Slow Economic Aid Amid Inflation Concerns

    Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world.Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world. More