Press conference exchange between CHRISTOPHER RUGABER and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Thank you. Chris Rugaber at Associated Press. There is an argument out there in favor of cutting rates more immediately. Inflation has continued to cool and is back at roughly 2 percent, despite the tariffs. And I guess I also wanted to ask about, you know, cracks in the job market, with gross hiring slowing—concentrated in just a few industries. We’ve seen some housing data, including this morning, that have been pretty weak. Do you see any concerns that, you know, the economy is weakening and that is a reason to cut rates going forward?

assistant: So we do—we do, of course, monitor all those things. I, I think if you look at the overall picture, you know, what you’re seeing is 4.2 percent unemployment and an economy that’s growing at a—at a rate hard to know, given the, the unusual flows in the first quarter. But it appears to be 1½, 2 percent—maybe a little better than that. Sentiment has come up off of its very low levels. It’s still—it’s still depressed. So, you know, you can—you can point to things—the housing market is a longer-run problem and also a short-run problem. I don’t think it’s indicative of—you know, basically, the situation is, we have a longer-run shortage of housing, and we also have high rates right now. I think the best thing we can do for the housing market is to restore price stability in a sustainable way and, and create a strong labor market, and that’s the best thing we can do for the housing market. You asked about the job market—again, look at labor force participation. Look at wages. Look at job creation. They’re all at healthy levels now. I, I would say you can see perhaps a very, very slow continued cooling, but nothing that’s troubling at this time. But, you know, we watch it—we watch it very, very carefully. So, overall, again, the current stance of monetary policy leaves us well positioned to respond in a timely way to economic developments, and—for now—and we’ll be watching the data carefully.

user: Well, just quickly on—given that, you know, there are concerns inflation will rise—but there is the alternate scenario that tariffs would create demand destruction and slow growth sufficiently and that would perhaps keep a bit of a lid on inflation. Do you see odds of that scenario, what odds do you see of that scenario coming true, and how many months of cool inflation would you need to see before concluding that maybe that lower-inflation scenario is taking place?

assistant: So this is very much the conversation we had today and yesterday. There, there are many, many different scenarios—many combinations of scenarios where inflation does or doesn’t prove out to be at the levels we think and where the labor market does or doesn’t soften. And I think what, what you see people doing is looking ahead at a time of very high uncertainty and writing down what they think the most likely case is. No one holds these, these rate paths with a great deal of conviction, and everyone would agree that they’re all going to be data dependent. And that—you can make a case for, for any of the rate paths, I think, that you see in, in the SEP. And, you know, we do this once a quarter. It’s—it’s a hard thing to do at this—particularly at this time. But it does reflect—you know, if you see somebody writing down, you know, a, a rate path that involves cuts, that’s them saying, “Yes, I think we will get to a place, more likely than not, where cuts will be appropriate.” And it could be—it could be a joint probability of a number of possible outcomes. Again, remember how much uncertainty we face, though.