Federal Reserve press conference, 2022-03-16 — Chair Jerome Powell

Question (Jo Ling Kent, NBC News): 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?
Answer: 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.