On Wednesday, June 18, 2025 FOMC Chair Jerome Powell gave his scheduled June 2025 FOMC Press Conference. (link of video and related materials)
Below are Jerome Powell’s comments I found most notable – although I don’t necessarily agree with them – in the order they appear in the transcript. These comments are excerpted from the “Transcript of Chair Powell’s Press Conference“ (preliminary)(pdf) of June 18, 2025, with the accompanying “FOMC Statement” and “Summary of Economic Projections” (pdf) dated June 18, 2025.
Excerpts from Chair Powell’s opening comments:
Good afternoon. My colleagues and I remain squarely focused on achieving our dual mandate goals of maximum employment and stable prices for the benefit of the American people. Despite elevated uncertainty, the economy is in a solid position. The unemployment rate remains low, and the labor market is at or near maximum employment. Inflation has come down a great deal but has been running somewhat above our 2 percent longer run objective.
also:
Our monetary policy actions are guided by our dual mandate to promote maximum employment and stable prices for the American people. At today’s meeting, the Committee decided to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 4-1/4 to 4-1/2 percent and to continue reducing the size of our balance sheet. We will continue to determine the appropriate stance of monetary policy based on the incoming data, the evolving outlook, and the balance of risks.
Changes to trade, immigration, fiscal, and regulatory policies continue to evolve, and their effects on the economy remain uncertain. The effects of tariffs will depend, among other things, on their ultimate level. Expectations of that level, and thus of the related economic effects, reached a peak in April and have since declined. Even so, increases in tariffs this year are likely to push up prices and weigh on economic activity.
Excerpts of Jerome Powell’s responses as indicated to various questions:
CHRIS RUGABER. Thank you, Chris Rugaber at Associated Press. There is an argument out there in favor of cutting rates more immediately. Inflation has continued to cool and is back at roughly 2 percent, despite the tariffs. And I guess I also wanted to ask about cracks in the job market with gross hiring slowing, concentrated in just a few industries. We’ve seen some housing data, including this morning, that have been pretty weak. Do you see any concerns that the economy is weakening and that is a reason to cut rates going forward?
CHAIR POWELL. So we do, we do of course monitor all those things. I think if you look at the overall picture, what you’re seeing is 4.2 percent unemployment, and an economy that’s growing at a rate hard to know given the unusual flows in the first quarter, but it appears to be 1-1/2, 2 percent, maybe a little better than that. Sentiment has come up off of its very low levels. It’s still, it’s still depressed, so you can point to things, the housing market is a longer run problem, and also a short run problem. I don’t think it’s indicative of — basically situations, we have a longer run shortage of housing, and we also have high rates right now. I think the best thing we can do for the housing market is to restore price stability in a sustainable way and create a strong labor market, and that’s the best thing we can do for the housing market. You asked about the job market, again, look at labor force participation, look at wages, look at job creation. They’re all at healthy levels now. I would say you can see perhaps a very, very slow continued cooling, but nothing that’s troubling at this time. But we watch it very, very carefully. So overall, again, the current stance of monetary policy leaves us well-positioned to respond in a timely way to economic developments, for now, and we’ll be watching the data carefully.
CHRIS RUGABER. Well, and just quickly, on — given that there are concerns inflation will rise, but there is the alternate scenario that tariffs would create demand destruction and slow growth sufficiently and that would perhaps keep a bit of a lid on inflation. Do you see odds of that scenario, what kind of odds do you see of that scenario coming true, and how many months of cool inflation would you need to see before concluding that maybe that lower inflation scenario is taking place?
CHAIR POWELL. So, this is very much the conversation we had today and yesterday. There are many, many different scenarios, many combinations of scenarios, where inflation does or doesn’t prove out to be at the levels we think and where the labor market does or doesn’t soften. And I think what you see people doing is looking ahead at a time of very high uncertainty, and writing down what they think the most likely case is. No one holds these rate paths with a great deal of conviction, and everyone would agree that they’re all going to be data dependent. And you can make a case for — for any of the rate paths, I think, that you see in the SEP. And we do this once a quarter, it’s a hard thing to do, particularly at this time. But it does reflect — if you see somebody writing down a rate path that involves cuts, that’s them saying, yes, I think we will get to a place more likely than not, where cuts will be appropriate. And it could be — it could be a joint probability of a number of possible outcomes. Again, remember how much uncertainty we face though.
also:
NEIL IRWIN. Thanks Chair Powell. Neil Irwin with Axios. There have been some cutbacks in economic statistics collection the last few weeks. Worries that long-running problems around funding and response rates may be getting worse. How much is this concern on your radar? How much confidence do you have that the gauges you’re watching to assess the economy are reliable right now?
CHAIR POWELL. Two things, one, the data we get right now, we can do our jobs. I’m not concerned that we can’t do our jobs. That’s not the — that’s not the point. The point really is that we are starting to see layoffs and important gatherers of data are saying that they’re having to cut back on the size of their surveys. That’s going to lead to more volatility in the surveys. I think we should take a step back and from our standpoint, and I think the standpoint of businesses and governments and everyone, having really good data on the state of the economy at any given time is a huge public good. It helps — it doesn’t just help the Fed, it helps the government, it helps Congress, it helps the Executive Branch. More importantly really, it helps businesses. They need to know what’s going on in the economy. The United States has been a leader for many, many years in this whole project of measuring and understanding what’s happening in our very large and dynamic economy. And I hate to see, I hate to see us cutting back on that, because it is a real benefit to the general public that people in all kinds of jobs have the best possible understanding of what’s happening in the economy and hence, what’s likely to happen. It’s very hard to measure what’s going on in the U.S. economy if you read — there was a book called, well it’s really remarkable how many things you need to understand to estimate U.S. GDP, very, very difficult. And it’s so important that we get it right. I just would, I just would say it’s not a place to — I would want to keep investing in that for the good of the general public.
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The Special Note summarizes my overall thoughts about our economic situation
SPX at 5959.46 as this post is written
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