Federal Reserve press conference, 2023-11-01 — Chair Jerome Powell

Question (Howard Schneider, Reuters): Just as a quick follow-on, to be clear on this: In your opening statement just now, you seemed to imply that you are not yet confident that financial conditions are restrictive enough to finish the fight. Is that true?
Answer: Yes. That’s exactly right. You know, to say it a different way: We haven’t made any decisions about, about future meetings. We have not made a determination, and we’re not—I will say that we’re not confident at this time that we’ve reached such a stance. We’re not confident that we haven’t; we’re not confident that we have. And that’s—that is—the way we’re going to be going into these future meetings is to be, you know, just determining the extent of any additional further policy tightening that may be appropriate to return inflation to 2 percent over time.

Question (Steve Liesman, CNBC): So is it right to think of that as a hiking bias is still in the Committee here?
Answer: We haven’t used that term, but it’s fair to say that’s the question we’re asking is, should we hike more? It’s not—it’s not, you know—that is the question, and you’re right that, in September, we wrote down one additional rate hike. But, you know—and we’ll [each] write down another forecast, as you know, in December.

Question (Edward Lawrence, Fox Business): Thank you. Thanks, Chair. Edward Lawrence with Fox Business. So for the last three months, the year-over-year PCE inflation was at 3.4 percent, core well over 3 percent. You’ve said in the past, 2 percent remains the Federal Reserve target, but with no rate increase today, how long would you be okay then with a 3 percent or 3 percent plus overall inflation?
Answer: You know, the, the progress is probably going to come in lumps and be bumpy, but we’re making progress. You know, I think the core PCE [inflation rate] came down by almost 60 basis points in the third quarter. So the best thing I could point you to would be the September SEP where, you know, the expectation was that, that inflation by the end of next year, on a 12-month trailing basis, would be well into the 2s and the year after that, further into the 2s. So that’s, that’s—if you look historically, that’s, that’s sort of consistent with the way inflation comes down. It does take some time, and as you get—you know, as you get further and further from those highs, it may actually take longer time. But the good news is, you know, we’re making progress and monetary policy is restrictive. And we feel like we’re on a path to make more progress, and it’s essential that we do.