Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell repeated that the U.S. central bank isn’t in any rush to cut interest rates as policymakers await more evidence that inflation is contained.
"The fact that the U.S. economy is growing at such a solid pace, the fact that the labor market is still very, very strong, gives us the chance to just be a little more confident about inflation coming down before we take the important step of cutting rates,” Powell said Friday at an event at the San Francisco Fed.
Fresh inflation data released earlier is "pretty much in line with our expectations,” he said. But Powell reiterated it won’t be appropriate to lower rates until officials are sure inflation is on track toward 2%, the rate they see as appropriate for a healthy economy.