Powell: Core PCE inflation readings are not where we wanted to be

FOMC Chairman Jerome Powell has commented on the policy outlook after the Federal Reserve’s decision to raise the policy rate by 75 basis points to the range of 3-3.25% following the September policy meeting.

Key Quotes

“There is a fairly large group that would see 100 bps by year-end”.

“Median policymaker sees 125 bps hikes by year-end”.

“Core PCE inflation readings are not where we expected or wanted to be”.

“MBS sales not something I expect to be considering in the near term”.

“We are very aware of what’s going on in other economies around the world and vice versa”.

“Labor market in particular has been very strong”.

“We are having an effect on interest-sensitive spending, exports and imports”.

“There is still very significant savings out there to support growth”.

“There is a possibility that growth could be stronger than we forecast, and that’s a good thing”.

“We cannot fail to get inflation down to 2%”.

“Very high likelihood of period of much lower growth”.

“We need to have a rise in unemployment, softer labor market conditions”.

“Higher interest rates, slower growth, softening labor market are all painful for public but they are not as painful as failing to restore price stability”.

“We want to act aggressively now and keep at it until we get inflation down”.

“In housing market, we have to go through a correction to get back to normal price growth”.

“This difficult correction should put housing market back into better balance”.

“Likely rates will get to levels in the Summary of Economic Projections”.

“We’ve written down a plausible path for fed funds rate and the actual path will be enough to bring down inflation”.

“There is no painless way to bring inflation down”.

“We haven’t given up the idea we can have just a modest increase in the jobless rate while bringing inflation down”.

“Think of price stability as an asset that delivers benefits to the public”.

“Delay in getting inflation down would only lead to more pain”.

“Once you are on path to lower inflation, things will start to feel better”.