Resolving “tension” between high inflation and still-elevated unemployment is the most urgent issue facing the Federal Reserve right now, Fed Chair Jerome Powell said Wednesday, acknowledging the central bank’s two goals are in potential conflict.
“This is not the situation that we have faced for a very long time and it is one in which there is a tension between our two objectives...Inflation is high and well above target and yet there appears to be slack in the labor market,” Powell said at a European Central Bank forum, an apparent reference to the 1970s bout of U.S. “stagflation” that combined high unemployment and fast-rising prices.
