Federal Reserve press conference, 2024-03-20 — Chair Jerome Powell

Question (Ann Saphir, Reuters): I mean just a question of—I mean, is there even enough data for you to be able to—
Answer: We’ll take—you know, things can happen during an intermeeting period, if you look back—unexpected things. So I don’t want to—I wouldn’t want to dismiss anything. So I just would say that the Committee wants to see more data that gives us higher confidence that inflation is moving down sustainably toward 2 percent. I also mentioned—and we don’t see this in the data right now, but if there were a significant weakening in the data, particularly in the labor market, that could also be a reason for us to begin the process of reducing rates. Again, I don’t—there’s nothing in the data pointing at that, but those are the things that we’ll be looking at, at coming meetings and—without trying to refer to any specific meeting.

Question (Claire Jones, Financial Times): Thank you. Claire Jones, Financial Times. Thanks a lot for the opportunity to ask a question. As Chair of the FOMC, would you want to see unanimity on the Committee or something close to it, meaning no more than one dissent, before you begin cutting rates? Thank you.
Answer: We’re a very consensus-oriented organization, and we do try to achieve consensus and, ideally, unanimity. People do dissent. It’s something that happens. Life goes on, and it’s not a problem. We’ve always had dissents. But—and so I—you know, you respect thoughtful dissents very much. It’s like, you may not agree with some arguments, but you really want to understand them. So you may read a book that takes a position that you have long opposed, just to understand [the position of] that book. So I treat dissents with real respect as well.

Question (Greg Robb, MarketWatch): Thank you. Greg Robb from MarketWatch. Chair Powell, could you say at this meeting whether there were more officials who wanted to be careful and go slower than— about rates—than there were at the last meeting? Was there—was there that sense of maybe it’s smart to wait? Thanks.
Answer: I guess I’d put it this way: The—if you look at the incoming inflation data that we’ve had for January and February, I think very broadly that suggests that we were right to wait until we’re more confident. So I think, I think—I didn’t hear anyone dismissing it as not information that we should look at or anything like that. So I think, generally speaking, it does go in the direction of saying, yes, it’s appropriate for us to be careful as we approach this question.

Question (Brendan Pedersen, Punchbowl News): Thanks Chair Powell. Brendan Pedersen with Punchbowl News. I wanted to ask you about central bank digital currency stuff. We’ve been hearing a lot from Republicans in Congress about what the Fed is or isn’t doing in a digital dollar, but I know you have said to Congress that you’re going to wait for approval before the Fed does anything— launches anything. But folks like House Majority Whip Tom Emmer have said that the Fed is either actively researching or hiring personnel to study the implications of the CBDC. Can you give us any clarity on what the Fed is doing right now on a digital dollar?
Answer: Sure. So I think we’ve been pretty transparent on this, but I will— I’ll try harder. So we are not getting ready to—we haven’t proposed—we haven’t come to a conclusion that we should propose, or anything like that, that Congress consider legislation to authorize a digital dollar. And it would take legislation by Congress signed by the President to give us the ability to do what we think of as a CBDC, which is really a retail CBDC with the public. So we’re just a long, long way from that. What we are doing, and I think what every major central bank is doing, is we’re trying to stay in the frontiers of what’s going on in digital finance, and it has many, many different areas. It has applications in wholesale finance, in the payment system, and so we need—to serve the public—these issues have become very front burner in the last five or six years—we need to be knowledgeable about all that. So we actually do have people trying to understand things that are—but it’s wrong to say that we’re working on a CBDC and that we’ve secretly got a lab here where we’ve got one, and we’re just going to spring it on Congress at the right moment. We don’t. I haven’t at all, in my own mind, made a decision that I think this is something the U.S. should be doing. I just think it’s something we need to be—we need to understand. We do have people who are keeping up with that, as part of the broader payments landscape. That’s, that’s how I would characterize it.