Today, the Federal Reserve held interest rates steady and signaled three rate cuts next year. During a press briefing at 4 p.m. today, leading economic experts – Skanda Amarnath (Employ America), Kitty Richards (Groundwork), and Jennifer Harris (BuildUS) – called on Chair Powell and the Fed to cut rates immediately to avert serious harm to workers and families.
You can listen to a recording of the press briefing here. To set up an interview with one of today’s panelists, email press@groundworkcollaborative.org.
KEY QUOTES
Skanda Amarnath, Executive Director, Employ America
“[The Fed] might think they’re helping with inflation, but they’re also inflicting a lot of long-term costs, potentially, and long-term price instability.”
“The Fed’s justification for effectively playing with fire was that inflation was high, so we have to take some extra risk with financial stability, with risks to the labor market. Turns out you don’t have to take those risks now. That’s a reason to move a little bit faster away from 5%, a little bit faster away from 4.5%.”
Kitty Richards, Senior Strategic Advisor, Groundwork Collaborative
“A year ago, nearly every economist was forecasting a Fed-caused recession along with falling inflation. Instead, we’ve seen rapid disinflation driven by supply increases while demand and growth stayed strong. I find it incredibly puzzling that Chair Powell continues to say over and over that the key question is, ‘Has the Fed done enough?’ instead of, ‘Did we need to do this at all?’”
“The Fed needs to reassess their theories and what they mean for the correct policy and focus much more on the real harms that high rates are causing right now, and the significant downside risk of throttling a thriving labor market and disturbing the supply chain corrections that have already brought inflation down so rapidly.”
Jennifer Harris, Founding and Interim Executive Director, BuildUS, and Former Senior Director for International Economics, National Security Council and National Economic Council
“If you think of inflation boiled down as too much demand chasing too little supply, you solve that by a set of supply-side investments that look a whole lot like the ones involved in the Inflation Reduction Act and the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.”
“A major risk of the Fed not getting more aggressive and cutting sooner is that the Fed could be biting the hand that is trying to feed it disinflation over the medium-term.”
“There’s a sad irony at work here, which is that these very investments seem to be…solving our inflation problem for us. I don’t want to overmake this case but I think this will strengthen over the next year or two.”