Jerome Powell says Fed has made 'quite a bit of progress' on inflation

Sarah Powell, you have also been on a journey and have been on hold since last July, have not cut rates like the ECB in June. Why not? What are you waiting for? So let me say that sitting here last year, we didn't, we, there was a lot we didn't know and we didn't know that we were just about to embark on a on a period of seven months of much lower inflation readings. We didn't realize that the second-half of last year was going to be an extraordinary year from a growth standpoint and also from the same point of the labor market. So things actually worked out in the second-half of last year in a remarkable way. Then as you know, in the first quarter of this year, we continue to have solid growth in the first half, actually solid growth and the labor market that's still strong, although we've seen a continued rebalancing in the labor market and inflation after after pausing in the in the first quarter now shows signs of resuming its disinflationary trend. So it's a little bit different journey. So where that where that leaves us is we've made quite a bit of progress in bringing inflation back down to our target. While the labor market has remained strong and growth has continued, we want that process to continue. I think the last reading and and the one before to an inflation, the one before to a less lesser extent do suggest that we are getting back on it on a disinflationary path. We want to be more confident that inflation is moving sustainably down toward 2% before we start the process of, of reducing how tight our, our policy is of, of loosening policy. That's what we've said. And what we would, what we'd like to see is more data like, like what we've been seeing recently. We'd also like to see the labor market remain strong. We've said that if we saw the labor market unexpectedly weakening, weakening that could, is also something that could, that could call for a reaction. How, how much more confident do you want to be the PCE number 2.6? That wasn't too bad that we got last week. That's right. So we're actually on a 12 month basis, we're actually at 2.6 both headline and core for inflation. And that's, that's, that represents really significant progress. I think we peaked at 5.4% in core and the same thing has happened in, in headline, we've gone from 7.1 to 2.6. So yes, we've made a lot of progress we wanted. We just want to understand that, that that the levels that we're seeing are a true reading on what is actually happening with underlying inflation. And as we were saying at the last part of last year, people were saying you need to declare victory, this is over. And then we had a quarter of inflation, which was well above 3%. So we want to be more confident. And frankly, because the US economy is strong and the labor market is strong, we have the ability to take our time and get this right. And that, that's what we're planning to do. So September, I'm, I'm not going to be landing on any, any specific dates here today. Let me also say that we're, we're well aware that if we go too soon, that we could undo the good work we've done in bringing down inflation. And if we go too late, we could unnecessarily undermine the recession, the, the recovery and the expansion. And, and so we're aware that we have two sided risks now more so than we did a year ago. That's a big change. I'd say risks are coming much more into balance.