Here is the key line in the article:
“I am worried about the labor market,” Hammack said. But looking at the
balance between the labor market and inflation, “we’ve got this
persistent high inflation that is sticking around, when all is said and
done it will be the better part of a decade.”
This is nothing new from Hammack, who has staked out the hawkish ground.
- “There are a lot of contracts to get renegotiated when you get to the
beginning of the year. And so it could be that we see pricing come
through.” - Says inflation pressure is coming from services and not from imported goods
- “It’s hard for me to see that core services [aside from] housing is being driven by tariffs”
- She wouldn’t be as concerned about high prices if inflation were just
one-tenth or two-tenths away from the 2% target. “But right now we’re at
3%,” she said. - “I do not currently put high odds of a labor-market downturn”
- “At this point, I don’t think there is more that monetary policy can do (for the jobs market)”
Another notable line
“If you read some of the market participant chatter, some of them are
talking about, well, maybe what the Fed means by its target is just
below 3%, and that getting it all the way to 2% is not a priority,” she
said. “To me, getting it back to 2% is critical for our credibility, and
that’s our objective.”
This article was written by Adam Button at investinglive.com.
