Federal Reserve determined to stop growth

Jobs are back, so workers have a target on their backs. The Labor Department reports the economy produced 263,000 jobs in September.

- Jesse Jackson

After losing an unimaginable 22 million jobs in the first two months of COVID as the economy shut down under Donald Trump, we’ve now gained all those jobs back and then some. Wages have even begun to inch upwards. That’s the good news. The bad news is the Federal Reserve is determined to stop the growth, cost millions of workers their jobs and strangle any hope for higher wages.

That’s not a prediction; it’s a promise made by Jerome Powell, the chair of the Federal Reserve.

The Fed has raised interest rates at its last three meetings and promises to keep raising them for the rest of the year. We will keep at it until we are confident the job is done,” says Powell. That will produce, he admits, some softening of labor market conditions,” admitting that there will be some pain” in what he hopes will be a softish landing” for the economy.