US Federal Reserve’s Kevin Warsh warns there will be ‘work to do’ unless high inflation eases – as it happened

The US’s top central banker then warns that there are concerning signs that US inflation is running too high, meaning the Federal Reserve may have “work to do” unless price pressures ease.

In his speech to the Jackson Hole symposium today, Kevin Warsh points to signs that some prices are rising rather faster than the Fed’s 2% target.

Fed chair Warsh indicates that he is more concerned about inflation, than the labor market (where the unemployment rate remains low), declaring that “the Fed’s predominant focus right now should be on prices.”

double quotation mark Over the past 12 months, 54% of goods and services in the PCE basket showed price increases above 3%. This is well below the post-pandemic highs of about 77 percent, but it remains well above the level of 32 percent in the two decades that preceded the pandemic.

Looking over just the past six months, the conclusion is similar: Of goods and services in the PCE basket, 49 percent showed annualized price increases above 3 percent. Again, this is well below the post-pandemic highs but still quite elevated.

Warsh reminds his audience that the Fed’s monetary policy committee warned in July that inflation “remained too high”, and cautions that this summer’s inflation data has not shown him that underlying trends have meaningfully improved.

And in a hint that he could push for tighter monetary policy to squeeze out inflation pressures, Warsh says:

double quotation mark We must be confident that underlying inflation is moving to our objective, clearly and at sufficient speed. Otherwise, we have work to do. That’s our job . . . our mandate . . . and our charge to keep.