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With inflation nearly defeated and the job market cooling, the Federal Reserve is prepared to start cutting its key interest rate from its current 23-year high, Chair Jerome Powell said Friday.
Powell did not say when rate cuts would begin or how large they might be, but the Fed is widely expected to announce a modest quarter-point cut in its benchmark rate when it meets in mid-September.
“The time has come for policy to adjust,” Powell said in his keynote speech at the Fed’s annual economic conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming. “The direction of travel is clear, and the timing and pace of rate cuts will depend on incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks.”
His reference to multiple rate cuts was the only hint that a series of reductions is likely, as economists have forecast. Powell emphasized that inflation, after the worst price spike in four decades inflicted pain on millions of households, appears largely under control:
“My confidence has grown,” he says, “that inflation is on a sustainable path back to 2%.”
According to the Fed’s preferred measure, inflation fell to 2.5% last month, far below its peak of 7.1% two years ago and only slightly above the central bank’s 2% target level.
