22 years that the government has tracked them, but they have come down from the start of this year, and further decreases would bring them closer to the level they were at immediately before the pandemic, when wages were growing much more slowly than today. another factor that i will be watching closely is longer - term inflation expectations, which i believe significantly influence inflation. as inflation moved higher over the past year and a half, measures of short - term inflation expectations moved up notably, but measures of longer - term expectations rose only a little and generally stand near levels seen in the years before the pandemic, when inflation was low. in fact, several measures of longer - term expectations have edged lower over the past couple of months. to me, this means that the public retains confidence that the fed will be able to rein in inflation in the medium term. to sum up, while i welcome promising news about inflation, i don ’ t yet see convincing evidence that it is moving meaningfully and persistently down along a trajectory to reach our 2 percent target. i keep in mind that a year ago we saw similarly promising evidence of inflation moderating for several months before it jumped up to a high and then very high level. those earlier inflation readings probably delayed our pivot to tightening monetary policy by a few months. the consequences of being fooled by a temporary softening in inflation could be even greater now if another misjudgment damages the fed ’ s credibility. so, until i see a meaningful and persistent moderation of the rise in core prices, i will support taking significant further steps to tighten monetary policy. - 8now let me lay out the implications of this outlook for monetary policy. since march, the fomc has raised our policy target range from near zero to between 2¼ and 2½ percent. that puts the upper bound of the current target range at the median of fomc participants ’ longer - run projection for the policy rate, as recorded in the june summary of economic projections ( sep ). this long - run rate is effectively where participants think the policy rate would settle when the economy is growing at its potential and inflation is at our 2 percent target. this is a good definition of success when employment and inflation are near our goals and no help is needed from monetary policy. but that isn ’ t the case now ; inflation is far from our goal, so more action is needed. the policy rate will have to move meaningfully above this neutral level to further restrain

that high and rising federal debt can, in the longer term, restrain private investment and, thereby, reduce productivity and overall economic growth. putting the federal budget on a sustainable path would aid the long - term vigor of the u. s. economy and help ensure 2 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches that policymakers have the space to use fiscal policy to assist in stabilizing the economy if it weakens. i will conclude with a few words on the technical implementation of monetary policy. in january, the fomc made the key decision to continue to implement monetary policy in an ample - reserves regime. in such a regime, we will continue to control the federal funds rate primarily by setting our administered rates, not through frequent interventions to actively manage the supply of reserves. in the transition to the efficient and effective level of reserves in this regime, we slowed the gradual decline in our balance sheet in may, and stopped it in july. in response to the funding pressures in money markets that emerged in mid - september, we decided to maintain a level of reserves at or above the level that prevailed in early september. to achieve this level of reserves, we announced in mid - october that we would purchase treasury bills at least into the second quarter of next year and would continue temporary open market operations at least through january. these actions are purely technical measures to support the effective implementation of monetary policy as we continue to learn about the appropriate level of reserves. they do not represent a change in the stance of monetary policy. thank you. i would be pleased to take your questions. 1 congressional budget office ( 2019 ), the 2019 long - term budget outlook ( pdf ) ( washington : cbo, june ). 3 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches