Daily Times

US inflation is “still too high” despite a recent slowdown, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday, leaving the door open for a new interest rate hike.

Additional evidence of “persistently above-trend growth” or fresh signs of tightness in the labor market “could warrant further tightening of monetary policy,” he told a conference in New York.

The Fed recently slowed its aggressive campaign of monetary tightening which lifted its benchmark lending rate to a 22-year high, as it looks to slow down inflation without pushing the US economy into recession.

Headline inflation, as measured by the Fed’s favored gauge, has more than halved since peaking in June last year, but remains stuck above its long-term target of two percent.

“Inflation is still too high, and a few months of good data are only the beginning of what it will take to build confidence that inflation is moving down sustainably toward our goal,” Powell said in a speech that was briefly delayed by climate change protesters.

“We cannot yet know how long these lower readings will persist, or where inflation will settle over coming quarters,” he continued, adding that the Fed would proceed “carefully” at future interest rate meetings.