FILE - Federal Reserve Board Chair Jerome Powell speaks during a news conference at the Federal Reserve in Washington, June 12, 2024. Powell will be interviewed at the Economic Club of Washington on Monday, July 15, 2024, about the U.S. and global economies, the central bank's efforts to tame inflation and the data it tracks as it seeks to keep the economy growing. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh, File)
WASHINGTON (AP) – Chair Jerome Powell said Monday that the Federal Reserve is becoming more convinced that inflation is headed back to its 2% target and said the Fed would cut rates before the pace of price increases actually reached that point.
“We’ve had three better readings, and if you average them, that’s a pretty good pace,” Powell said of inflation in a question-and-answer question at the Economic Club of Washington. Those figures, he said, “do add to confidence” that inflation is slowing sustainably.
The Fed chair declined to provide any hints of when the first rate cut would occur. But most economists and investors expect the central bank to begin cutting its key rate in September, though a few now envision a rate cut as early as the Fed’s next meeting later this month.
“Today,” Powell said, “I’m not going to send any signals on any particular meeting.”
