BoostedJonP/JeromePowell-SFT huggingface dataset:
Press conference exchange between STEVE LIESMAN and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Thank you. Mr. Chairman, I wonder if you can help me understand the logic, if there is one, in the SEP here. As I look at the median forecast, for example, for unemployment, it runs for the three-year window below the long-run rate. I look at inflation being above, over the three-year window, the long-run—or call it the neutral—rate, so the economy still runs hot. And that is all true in a regime when you run at least for two years the funds rate above the long-run rate. I guess my question is this: Are you not create—giving a forecast here that essentially suggests you will be continuing to run further “behind the curve”—and never really get in front of inflation, because the economy will continue to run hot? And, on a related issue: You said earlier that inflation will take longer to return to price stability than we had originally expected. Isn’t that a choice you’re making? And, if so, why are you making that choice to let inflation run above price stability longer than you’d like?

assistant: Right. So our, if you look, our—first of all, there is no—you’re looking at medians. But understand that there’s no, it’s not something we voted on. It’s not a plan. But if you look, people do have their in—by the end of this year, broadly, people are at or close to or, in some cases, above their estimates of longer-run neutral interest rate. Okay. So that should stop pushing—that should, in other words, that should be a removal of accommodation for monetary policy, basically. At the same time, we will have done significant balance sheet runoff. And you can think of that as further. In the next year, and just looking at the median, you’re now above the, you know, above the, what people estimate to be the longer-run median. And also, in many people’s forecasts, that actually amounts to, you know, tight policy under, in real rates as well. So why does unemployment remain at 3.5 percent? You know, it—I mean, a couple points. One is the connection between—in the economy we had before the pandemic, the connection between inflation and the level of the unemployment rate was not very tight. But this is—clearly, what this an expectation that, really it amounts to that, the idea that wage increases, which are now running above the level that would be consistent over the long run with 2 percent inflation, will move back down to levels which are still very attractive, full-economy kind of—full-employment wages, but not to a point where they’re pushing up inflation anymore. And, as I mentioned, there are a lot of factors causing inflation to come down. And, you know, the reality is, there are many, many moving pieces, and we don’t know what will actually happen. But no matter what happens, this is a Committee that is determined to use its tools to make sure that higher inflation does not become entrenched. And so we are determined on that front, and we’ll deal with what comes. This is a modal, or most likely, expectation. But we’ll deal with what comes, whether it’s better or worse.
Press conference exchange between CHRISTOPHER RUGABER and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Hi. Thank you. Well, let me follow up a bit on that. I mean, there are a lot of economists skeptical that you can reduce inflation as much as you’ve penciled in without raising the unemployment rate. And I’m wondering, just what are the mechanisms you see in reducing demand? I mean, outside housing and autos, how do higher fed funds rates reduce consumer demand unless it’s through higher unemployment? Thank you.

assistant: Well, if you take a look at today’s labor market, what you have is 1.7-plus job openings for every unemployed person. So that’s a very, very tight labor market— tight to an unhealthy level, I would say. So, in principle, if you were—let’s say that our tools work about as you described, and the idea is, we’re trying to better align demand and supply, let’s just say in the labor market. So it would actually, if you were just moving down the number of job openings so that they were more like one to one, you would have less upward pressure on wages. You would have a lot less of a labor shortage, which is going on pretty much across the economy. We’re hearing from companies that they can’t hire enough people. They’re having a hard time hiring. So that’s really the thinking there, is, you know, these are fairly well-understood channels, interest sensitive. And, basically, across the economy, we’d like to slow demand so that it’s better aligned with supply; give supply, at the same time, time to recover; and get into a better, you know, a better alignment of supply and demand. And that, over time, should bring inflation down. And I’ll say again, though, you know, we don’t have a perfect crystal ball about the future, and we’re prepared to use our tools as needed to restore price stability. You know, as I mentioned in my opening remarks, without price stability, there—you really can’t have a sustained period of maximum employment. It’s our—one of our most fundamental obligations is to maintain and restore, in this case, price stability. So we’re very committed to that. Of course, the plan is to restore price stability while also sustaining a strong labor market. That is our intention, and we believe we can do that. But we have to restore price stability.
Press conference exchange between SCOTT HORSLEY and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Thanks. And I apologize if this covers some of the same ground you just talked about, Mr. Chair. I think I missed some of your answer there. But I have a follow-up question on the labor force. We have seen some gains in the prime-age workforce in the last few months. I wonder what you anticipate when it comes to some of the older workers as the health outlook has changed. Are we going to see more recent retirees following Tom Brady back into the workforce? And what would that mean for wages and inflation?

assistant: It’s hard to say. You know, what we saw in the last cycle was that, over the course of a long, steady expansion, labor force participation outperformed expectations. And that was just a, you know, it was a tight labor market, but it wasn’t—it was nowhere near as tight as this labor market. But it was a tight labor market, and so people stayed in the labor force longer. It wasn’t so much people coming back in the labor force after retirement. That’s not something that happens, in the aggregate, very much. But, so that’s what was happening. And, you know, more labor force participation is tremendously welcome. And, of course, our policy does not in any way preclude that. This is a situation where wages have moved up at the highest rate in a very long time. And people are able to quit their jobs and move to better-paying jobs in the same industry or different industries. So it’s a really attractive labor market for people. And once, you know, as we get past COVID well and truly, it becomes an even more attractive one. So we hope will lead to more labor supply. That’s a good thing for the country. It’s a good thing for people. And it also will, we think, help relieve some of the wage pressures that do put inflation more at risk. That last part is, we’ll have to see whether, empirically, it winds up, works out that way. But, in principle, it ought to help with inflation as well. It’s not the only thing we’re looking for, though, from inflation. We’re looking for help from a number of different places and, most importantly, from our own policy.
Press conference exchange between RICH MILLER and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Thank you, Michelle. And thank you, Chair Powell. I’m sorry; I’m having some communication problems. So I missed some of the stuff you’ve said, and my apologies if this has been asked. Since the FOMC met last January, financial conditions have tightened markedly, equity prices down, Treasury yield’s up, bond spread’s risen, yield curve has flattened a lot, and even further just today, dollar’s up. Is that welcome? And would you like to see more in order to achieve your goals? Thank you.

assistant: So, as you know, policy works through financial conditions. That’s how it reaches the real economy—by just the mechanisms you mentioned. And remember that the financial conditions we had for the last couple of years were a function not only of very aggressive, and appropriately so, fiscal policy, but also highly accommodative monetary policy—the monetary policy settings that we put in place at the worst parts of the pandemic. So it is very appropriate to move away from those. And, yes, that will lead to some tightening in financial conditions in the form of higher interest rates and just the sorts of things—we’re not targeting any one or more of those things, but financial conditions generally should move to a more normal level so that—because we know the economy no longer needs, or wants, these very highly accommodative, this stance, which, you know, so it’s time to move to a more normal setting of financial conditions, and we do that by moving monetary policy itself to more normal levels.

user: When you say “move to a more normal setting” for financial conditions, that suggests to me that you want financial conditions to tighten further from where we are now. Am I drawing the right inference from that?

assistant: Well, yes. So I would say, we look at a broad range of financial conditions. And, of course, when we tighten monetary policy, we do expect that they will adjust in sync over time with monetary policy. It’s not any particular financial condition, but a broad range of financial conditions. They will reflect to some extent—they reflect any number of things. But, yes, we need our policy to transmit to the real economy. And it does so through financial conditions, which means that, as we tighten policy or remove accommodation so that it’s at least less accommodative, that broader financial conditions will also be less accommodative.
Press conference exchange between JEAN YUNG and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Hi, Chair Powell. I wanted to ask about the balance sheet discussion you had at this meeting. Can you give us any more details? Did you discuss whether to cap runoffs or whether to increase those caps over what period, if there were any details?

assistant: Yes. Thank you for asking. So, at our meeting today and yesterday, we made excellent progress toward agreeing on the parameters of a plan to shrink the balance sheet. And I’d say we’re now in a position to finalize and implement that plan so that we’ll actually begin a runoff at a coming meeting. And that could come as soon as our next meeting in May. That’s not a decision that we’ve made. But I would say ’s how well our discussions went in the last two days. So a couple things just to add. We’ll be mindful of the broader financial and economic context when we make the decision on timing, and we always want to use our tools to support macroeconomic and financial stability. We want to avoid adding uncertainty to what’s a highly uncertain situation already. So all of that will go into the thinking of the timing around this. In terms of the—I would say this. I don’t want to get too much into the details, because we’re literally just finalizing them. But the framework is going to look very familiar to people who are familiar with the last time we did this. But it’ll be faster than the last time. And, of course, it’s much sooner in a cycle than last time. But it will look familiar to you. And I would also say that there’ll be—I’m sure there’ll be a more detailed discussion of our—in the minutes to our meeting that come out in three weeks, where I expect that it will lay out, you know, pretty much the parameters of what we’re looking at, which I think will look quite familiar.
Press conference exchange between BRIAN CHEUNG and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Hi, Chair Powell. Hopefully no tech issues here on this front. Wanted to ask just the broad question about how you are communicating what the Fed’s doing here today to the average American who might not be reading the dot plots or understanding what the SEP is. How is the 25 basis point hike today and then the signaling on future Fed policy going to address the inflation that they’re feeling at the stores on a daily basis?

assistant: Sure. So I guess I’d start by just assuring everyone that we’re fully committed to bringing inflation back down and also sustaining the economic expansion. We do understand that these higher prices, no matter what the source, have real effects on people’s well- being. And, really, high inflation takes a toll on everyone. But it’s really, especially, on people who use most of their income to buy essentials like food, housing, and transportation, where—I mean, we’ve all seen charts that show, if you’re a middle-income person, you’ve got room to absorb some inflation. If you’re at the lower end of the income spectrum, it’s very hard because you’re spending most of your money already on necessities, and the price is going up. But it’s punishing for everyone. So it has been a difficult time for the economy. But we do anticipate that inflation will move back down, as I mentioned earlier. It may take longer than we like, but I’m confident that we’ll use our tools to bring inflation down. You asked about rates. So the way that works, I would explain, is, as we raise interest rates, that should gradually slow down demand for the interest-sensitive parts of the economy. And so what we would see is demand slowing down, but just enough so that it’s better matched with supply. And that brings—that will bring inflation down over time. That’s our plan.
Press conference exchange between JO LING KENT and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Hi, Chair Powell. Thank you so much for taking my question during this today. My question is a follow-up to what Brian just asked. What is your message to consumers out there who can no longer afford the basics due to this high inflation?

assistant: Well, that is—yes, indeed. I mean, as I just said, you know, I think we do understand very much, and we very much take to heart, that it’s our obligation to restore price stability. And, you know, we’ve had price stability for a very long time and maybe come to take it for granted. But now we see the pain. I’m old enough to remember what very high inflation was like. And, you know, we’re strongly committed as a Committee to not allowing this higher inflation to become entrenched and to use our tools to bring inflation back down to more normal levels, which—our target is 2 percent inflation. So we will do that. And I just would want people to understand that, and that’s—but the way we do that is by raising interest rates and by shrinking our balance sheet. And so financial conditions will become, at the margin, less supportive of various kinds of economic activity. That will slow the economy, while also allowing the labor market to remain very strong. And, you know, the good news is, the economy and the labor market are quite strong. And that means the economy, we think, can handle interest rate increases.

user: And as a quick follow-up to that, you know, obviously, the Federal Reserve walking this very complicated fine line, trying to avoid a recession. For the consumers out there who are worried about their jobs in a possible recession, what do you say to that?

assistant: Well, I, you know, I say that our intention is to bring inflation back down to 2 percent, while still sustaining a strong labor market and that the economy is very strong. If you look at where forecasts are, people are forecasting growth that’s strong within the context of U.S. potential economic output. So—and we expect that to continue. And to the extent the data come in different, then, of course, our policy will adapt. But we do believe that our policy is the appropriate one for this forecast, and we believe that we can bring down inflation. We believe that we can do so while sustaining a strong labor market. The labor market is—it’s not strong in the ordinary sense of the word. We have not seen a labor market where there are 1.7 job openings for every unemployed person or where there, if you add job openings to those who are employed, that’s actually substantially a larger number than the size of the workforce, than the number of people who actually count themselves as in the workforce. So this is a situation where demand is higher than supply. And when that happens, prices go up. And they—so we need to use our tools to move supply and demand back. And we don’t think we need to do this alone. There will be other factors helping that happen. But we certainly are prepared to use our tools—and we will.
Press conference exchange between SIMON RABINOVITCH and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Hi. Thank you, Michelle. Thank you, Chair Powell. Sorry to take you away from inflation for one minute. May I ask about the sanctions on Russia and, specifically, the freezing of the central bank assets? Of course, that raises a similar risk for other sovereigns around the world and their biggest companies, potentially. Any concerns about, in the long term, how this might affect the dollar’s status as the preeminent global reserve currency? And in the past couple of weeks, have you had to deliver any kinds of reassurance to other central bankers around the world?

assistant: Well, so, of course, central bankers around the world are generally very in favor of these sanctions. But let me say this: Sanctions are really the business of the elected government, and that’s true everywhere. So the Administration and the Treasury Department, in particular, and other agencies—they create these sanctions. We’re there to provide technical expertise, but they’re not, it’s not our decisions. And so I’m reluctant to comment on sanctions really much because, again, they’re not for us to decide. We have a very specific mandate. And these are really the province of elected governments, as I mentioned. So I’d have to leave it at that. Sorry.
Press conference exchange between NANCY MARSHALL and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: -GENZER. Hi, Chair Powell. Thanks for taking the question. You’ve been talking a lot about rising wages, which, on the one hand, is a great thing, but are we possibly seeing the beginning of a wage–price spiral?

assistant: So the way I would say it is this: We, first of all, I would agree with the premise that wages moving up is a great thing. You know, that’s how the standard of living rises over time. And, generally, it’s driven over long periods by rising productivity. But what we have now, if you look at these, the wage increases that we have, we look at a—we’re blessed with a range of measures of wages that all measure different things. But right now, they’re all showing the same thing, which is that the increases—not the levels, but the increases—are running at levels that are well above what would be consistent with 2 percent inflation, our goal, over time. And that may be—we don’t know how persistent that phenomenon will be. It’s very hard to say. And that’s really, I think, the sense of your question about a wage–price spiral; is that something that’s going to start happening and become entrenched in the system? We don’t see that. You can see, for example, in some sectors that got very high wage increases early on, those wage increases looked like they may have slowed down to a normal level. But it comes back to, you know, what I’m saying here—which is, there’s a misalignment of demand and supply, particularly in the labor market. And that is leading to wages moving up at ways that are not consistent with 2 percent inflation over time. And so we need to use our tools to, you know, guide inflation back down to 2 percent. And that would be in the context of an extraordinarily strong labor market. We think this labor market can handle, as I mentioned, tighter monetary policy. And the overall economy can as well. But, yes, wages are moving up faster than is consistent with 2 percent inflation, but it’s good to see that moving up. But it wouldn’t be sustainable over too long of a period to see them moving up that much higher. And that’s because of this misalignment between supply and demand. We expect to get more labor supply. We did last time. We got more than we expected during the last cycle. This time, we’ve gotten much less than expected. So it’s not easy to predict these things. But we do expect that we’ll get people coming back in the labor market, particularly as COVID becomes less and less of a factor in many people’s lives, something we all wish. But, so that’s how we think about it.
Press conference exchange between DON LEE and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Hi, Chair Powell. I think you said to the Senate earlier this month that, in hindsight, the Fed should have moved earlier. And it sounds like today that you don’t think that the Fed is late. And, just wanted to get your clarification on that. And if it is, if you still think that the Fed is “behind the curve,” how much “behind the curve” is it?

assistant: Right. So we are not—we don’t have the luxury of 20/20 hindsight in actually implementing real-time decisions in the world. So, you know, so the question is—the right question is, did you make the right decisions based on what you knew at the time? But that’s not the question I was answering, which is knowing what now. So I think if we knew now—of course, if we knew now that these supply blockages, really, and the inflation resulting from them in collision with, you know, very strong demand, if we knew was what was going to happen, then in hindsight, yes. It would have been appropriate to move earlier. Obviously, it would be. But, again, we don’t have that luxury. And then, so, but that’s a separate question from your other question, which is “behind the curve.” And, you know, I don’t have the luxury of looking at it that way. You know, we are, we have our tools—powerful tools—and the Committee is very focused on using them. We’re acutely aware of the need to restore price stability while keeping a strong labor market. And what I saw today was a Committee that is strongly committed to achieving price stability, in particular, and prepared to use our tools to do that. We’re not going to let high inflation become entrenched. The costs of that would be too high. And we’re not going to wait so long that we have to do that. No one wants to have to really put restrictive monetary policy on, in order to get inflation back down. So, frankly, the need is one of getting back up, getting rates back up to more neutral levels as quickly as we practicably can and then moving beyond that, if that turns out to be appropriate. And, as you can see, it is appropriate in the sense that, in people’s contributions to the SEPs, they do write down levels of interest rates that are above their estimate of the longer-run neutral rate. And there’s also a range of estimates, too, as you will see if you look at the details of the SEP. But thanks for your question.