Fed’s Powell Noted ‘Balance of Risks’ in Rate Hike Path From 2018 Onwards, Transcripts Show

Fed’s Powell Noted ‘Balance of Risks’ in Rate Hike Path From 2018 Onwards, Transcripts Show
Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell speaks at a news conference after a Federal Open Market Committee meeting at the Federal Reserve Board Building in Washington on Dec. 14, 2022. Nicholas Kamm/AFP via Getty Images
Reuters
Updated:

Two months before he became Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell urged a gradual approach to raising interest rates so that the U.S. central bank could more adequately assess the true strength of the labor market against tepid inflation, foreshadowing a cautiousness on policy that would persist under his leadership until the coronavirus crisis and its aftermath forced a wholesale change.

Transcripts from the Fed’s 2017 policy meetings released Friday showed Powell, then a Fed Board governor, navigating through that year’s major policy shifts—the start of balance sheet reduction and a pick—up in the pace of interest rate increases—against a backdrop of sluggish inflation and a job market he and others viewed as approaching full employment.