Powell says U.S. Fed will 'keep pushing' until inflation comes down

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said no one should doubt the US central bank’s resolve to curb the highest inflation in decades, including pushing rates into restrictive territory if needed.

“What we need to see is inflation coming down in a clear and convincing way, and we’re going to keep pushing until we see that,” he said Tuesday during a Wall Street Journal live event. “If that involves moving past broadly understood levels of ‘neutral,’ we won’t hesitate at all to do that.”

The Fed chair repeatedly stressed the need to curb the hottest inflation in decades during the roughly 35-minute interview, calling price stability “the bedrock of the economy” and acknowledging that some pain in achieving this -- including a slight rise in the unemployment rate, was a cost worth paying in order to achieve it.

Powell and his colleagues raised interest rates by a half point at their meeting earlier this month and the chair said two similar moves were on the table in June and July. He repeated that guidance Tuesday, noting that “if the economy performs as we expect, then that’s something that will be on the table.” The target for their benchmark rate currently stands in a 0.75 per cent to one per cent range.