Yellen’s ‘Hot’ Labor Market Evokes ’70s
Washington — Janet Yellen is pursuing a monetary policy with echoes from an era of bell-bottom jeans and New York Knicks’ basketball championships. And that’s got some economists worried. In an unorthodox move, the Fed chair has signaled her intention to keep interest rates low enough to temporarily push unemployment modestly below its long-run natural rate. She described in a speech last month how a tight job market could entice...
What the Fed Wants to See For Rate Hike
Washington — So what will it take for the Federal Reserve to finally raise interest rates? The U.S. economy is now in its seventh straight year of expansion. It’s growing at a steady if unexciting 2.2 percent annual rate. Unemployment has sunk from a 10 percent peak to a reassuring 5.1 percent. Auto and home sales have accelerated. Yet on Thursday, Fed officials declined to lift rates from record lows. The decision left some Fed...
Yellen: Rate Hike On Track
Washington — Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said the Fed is on track to start raising interest rates later this year but expressed multiple concerns over headwinds that are still holding back the U.S. economy. She described the outlook for the economy and inflation as “highly uncertain,” amid lingering weakness in the labor market and new potential threats overseas. Yellen, speaking on the economy for the first time since the...
Fed’s View of Economy Means Slow Rate Rise
Washington — For Federal Reserve officials, the U.S. economy is a glass house where aggressive moves could break something. While the median forecast of policymakers still calls for two interest-rate increases by year-end, more officials say just one would be enough in 2015. Still more advocate a go-slow approach to further tightening in 2016. Projections from the Federal Open Market Committee published Wednesday showed that five...
Federal Reserve Downgrades Its Economic Outlook
Washington — Federal Reserve policymakers sharply downgraded their view of the economy — forecasting the weakest annual growth since 2011 — but indicated they were on track to raise a key interest rate in the coming months. “It’s not an ironclad guarantee, but we anticipate that that’s something that will be appropriate later this year,” Fed Chairwoman Janet L. Yellen told reporters Wednesday. Fed policymakers had said they could...
