Fed Chair Powell vows to raise rates to fight inflation ‘until the job is done’

• Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said Thursday he is “strongly committed” to fighting inflation.
• The Fed has raised benchmark interest rates four times this year, with the fed funds rate now set in a range between 2.25%-2.50%.
• This was the Fed chief’s last publicly scheduled appearance before the central bank’s Sept. 20-21 meeting.

Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell in an appearance Thursday emphasized the importance of getting inflation down now before the public gets too used to higher prices and comes to expect them as the norm.

In his latest comments underlining his commitment to the inflation fight, Powell said expectations play an important role and were a critical reason why inflation was so persistent in the 1970s and ’80s.

“History cautions strongly against prematurely loosening policy,” the central bank leader said in a Q&A presented by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank based in Washington, D.C. “I can assure you that my colleagues and I are strongly committed to this project and we will keep at it until the job is done.”

The event was Powell’s last scheduled public appearance before the Fed’s next meeting on Sept. 20-21.

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