- Fed raises policy rate to 2.25%-2.50% range
- U.S. central bank flags weakening economic data
- Fed’s Powell says failure to tame inflation not an option
WASHINGTON, July 27 (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve said on Wednesday it would not flinch in its battle against the most intense breakout of inflation in the United States since the 1980s even if that means a “sustained period” of economic weakness and a slowing jobs market.
As he explained the logic behind the stiffest interest rate increases in roughly four decades, Fed Chair Jerome Powell was peppered with questions about whether the U.S. economy was in or on the cusp of a recession – a notion he rejected because U.S. firms continue to hire in excess of 350,000 additional workers each month.
“I do not think the U.S. is currently in a recession,” he told reporters after the end of the U.S. central bank’s latest policy meeting, citing an unemployment rate that is still near a half-century…
