{"id":224956,"date":"2025-10-14T21:39:14","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T21:39:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/224956\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T21:39:14","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T21:39:14","slug":"with-inflation-and-jobs-in-tension-powell-warns-of-the-feds-tightrope-on-interest-rates","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/224956\/","title":{"rendered":"With inflation and jobs in \u2018tension,\u2019 Powell warns of the Fed\u2019s tightrope on interest rates"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Federal Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during the National Association of Business Economics meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on October 14, 2025. – Hannah Beier\/Bloomberg\/Getty Images <\/p>\n

The Federal Reserve is doing a difficult balancing act<\/a>, trying to tamp down inflation while lifting up the job market, Chair Jerome Powell said Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere is no risk-free path for policy as we navigate the tension between our employment and inflation goals,\u201d Powell said in prepared remarks for an event hosted by the National Association for Business Economics.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

President Donald Trump\u2019s sweeping policies on trade, immigration and government spending have thrust the world\u2019s most powerful central bank into a tricky situation rarely seen since it was established more than a century ago.<\/p>\n

Trump\u2019s tariffs have already pushed up some prices<\/a>, according to Commerce Department data, and in September, more small businesses said they\u2019re planning price hikes in the coming months, a survey from the National Federation of Independent Business on Tuesday showed.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, there have been mounting signs of a weakening labor market. Job growth in recent months has been anemic, people are staying unemployed for longer, and there are now more unemployed people seeking work than there are job openings.<\/p>\n

To make matters more complicated, the shutdown of the federal government has suspended the release of most official economic data, which the Fed relies on to understand the economy.<\/p>\n

Powell said the Fed looks at \u201ca wide variety of public- and private-sector data that have remained available\u201d and that \u201cwe also maintain a nationwide network of contacts through the Reserve Banks who provide valuable insights\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cBased on the data that we do have, it is fair to say that the outlook for employment and inflation does not appear to have changed much since our September meeting four weeks ago,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n

Fed officials lowered borrowing costs for the first time this year in September<\/a>, when they also warned about the risks to both inflation and jobs.<\/p>\n

\u201cIf we move too quickly (with lowering rates), then we may leave the inflation job unfinished and have to come back later and finish it,\u201d Powell said during the event. \u201cIf we move too slowly, there may be unnecessary losses, painful losses, in the employment market.\u201d<\/p>\n

Fed officials themselves are debating how best to steer the economy.<\/p>\n

Fed governors Michelle Bowman and Christopher Waller \u2014 both Trump appointees \u2014 cast dissenting votes in July, backing a rate cut instead of holding steady. It was the first time more than one Fed governor dissented on a policy decision since the 1993.<\/p>\n

In September, Fed Governor Stephen Miran, a close Trump ally who was sworn in an hour before the latest Fed interest-rate meeting, wanted to lower rates by half a point instead of a quarter point.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell speaks during the National Association of Business Economics meeting in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":224957,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[36],"tags":[28,101,33291,2800,2402,2938,124469,126253,942],"class_list":["post-224956","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-economy","tag-business","tag-economy","tag-fed-officials","tag-federal-reserve","tag-inflation","tag-jerome-powell","tag-national-association-for-business-economics","tag-national-association-of-business-economics","tag-president-donald-trump"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224956","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=224956"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/224956\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/224957"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=224956"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=224956"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=224956"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}