Patrick Harker, Speech: Opening Remarks, Wharton Initiative on Financial Policy & Regulation

Q&A Video is not yet available (excerpts below).

Fed Funds

“My view all along, and I have been pretty public about this, we need to get rates above 5% and then sit there for a while.”

“Since the full impact of monetary-policy actions can take as much as 18 months to work its way through the economy, we will continue to look closely at available data to determine what, if any, additional actions we may need to take.”

“If we see inflation not budging, then I think we’ll have to take more action. But, at this point, I don’t see why we would just continue to go up, up, up and then go ‘oops’ and go down quickly … Let’s just sit there for a while and see how it goes.”

Speech

Jobs

“On the employment side of the dual mandate, we see that job gains are strong, and the unemployment rate remains low — 3.5 percent nationally last month. We are, effectively, at full employment.”

Inflation

“But on the inflation side, we see a lot of room for improvement. Headline PCE inflation has come down from its peak of 7 percent last year (year over year, June 2022) but is still running, year over year, at 5 percent — way above our 2 percent target. And recent readings show that disinflation is proceeding slowly — which is disappointing, to say the least.”

Fed Funds

“Since the full impact of monetary policy actions can take as much as 18 months to work its way through the economy, we will continue to look closely at available data to determine what, if any, additional actions we may need to take. But make no mistake: We are fully committed to bringing inflation back down to our 2 percent target.”