FILE - Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference at the Federal Reserve in Washington, June 12, 2024. Powell testifies to the House Financial Services Committee on Wednesday, July 10, 2024, the second of two days of semi-annual testimony to Congress.
“We’re not just an inflation-targeting central bank,’’ Powell told the House Financial Services Committee on the second of two days of semi-annual testimony to Congress. “We also have an employment mandate.”in four decades and noted that cutting rates “too late or too little could unduly weaken economic activity and employment.”“For a long time,” Powell said Wednesday, “we’ve had to focus on the inflation mandate.
Powell told the House panel on Wednesday that to avoid damaging the economy, the Fed likely wouldn’t wait until inflation reached its 2% target before it would start cutting rates. Most economists have said they expect the Fed’s first rate cut to occur in September. Powell this week has declined to say when he envisions the first cut.