Jerome H. Powell at the Economic Club of New York

Before our discussion, I will take a few minutes to discuss recent economic data and the outlook for monetary policy.

Recent Economic Data 

Incoming data over recent months show ongoing progress toward both of our dual mandate goals—maximum employment and stable prices.

Inflation

By the time the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) raised rates in March 2022, it was clear that restoring price stability would require both the unwinding of pandemic-related distortions to supply and demand, and also restrictive monetary policy to cool strong demand and give supply time to catch up. These forces are now working together to bring inflation down.

After peaking at 7.1 percent in June 2022, 12-month headline PCE (personal consumption expenditure) inflation is estimated at 3.5 percent through September. Core PCE inflation, which omits the volatile food and energy components, provides a better indicator of where inflation is heading. Twelve-month core PCE inflation peaked at 5.6 percent in February 2022 and is estimated at 3.7 percent through September.

Inflation readings turned lower over the summer, a very favorable development. The September inflation data continued the downward trend but were somewhat less encouraging. Shorter-term measures of core inflation over the most recent three and six months are now running below 3 percent. But these shorter-term measures are often volatile. In any case, inflation is still too high, and a few months of good data are only the beginning of what it will take to build confidence that inflation is moving down sustainably toward our goal. We cannot yet know how long these lower readings will persist, or where inflation will settle over coming quarters. While the path is likely to be bumpy and take some time, my colleagues and I are united in our commitment to bringing inflation down sustainably to 2 percent.