Fed’s Williams Says Inflation Continuing To Trend Down
Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams said there’s evidence inflation continues to ease as the impact of tariffs fades while higher energy prices are not spreading to other services.
“The data recently has been encouraging,” Williams said Wednesday in an interview with CNBC. “I am actually seeing the trend in inflation moving slowly down as some of the effects of the tariffs move into the rearview mirror.”
The New York Fed chief supported the decision to hold interest rates steady at the last Federal Open Market Committee meeting in July.
“Coming out of the last FOMC meeting, interest rates are in a good place” to balance the central bank’s dual mandate of full employment and price stability, Williams said. “We’re collecting a lot of data now, and we’ll have to reassess that,” he added.
Williams said the biggest drivers of inflation are still tariffs and higher energy prices as a result of the conflict in the Middle East. “There’s still some effects of higher service inflation too,” he added.
Fed officials will meet again on September 15-16 in Washington after leaving interest rates steady in five meetings this year. In July, three voting members of the FOMC dissented in favor of a quarter-point rate hike.
This article was provided by Bloomberg News.
