Jerome Powell had his first ever broadcast interview as Fed chair with the Marketplace. On wages, he acknowledged that annual wage growth has moved up from “low twos” five years ago, to close to three” now. And there’s been “very gradual move up”. He noted that wages should “reflect inflation plus productivity”. A “big part” of the slow wage growth is “certainly that inflation has been low and productivity has been low”. Yet, he didn’t have the answer to the question on why employers are not paying higher wages while the labor markets appear to be very tight.
Though, he also noted that “the economy’s in a really good shape” with unemployment at 4%, the lowest in 20 years. And, people are “coming back into the labor force or not leaving it” in the past five years. Fed’s target of PCE, which is “a little bit lower than the CPI” has been below 2% for some time. But it finally hit the 2% core PCE level last month.
Regarding trade policy, Powell noted Trump’s administration “said” it’s trying to lower tariffs. And, “if it works out that way, then that’ll be a good thing for our economy.” However, “if it works our other ways” and there will be high tariffs on a lot of products for a sustained period of tie, “that could be a negative for our economy”. But it’s “hard to sit here today and say which way that’s going”.
But Powell also emphasized that when Fed doesn’t make the policy, “we don’t praise it, we don’t criticize it”. And, “part of the independence that we have is to stick to our lane, stick to our knitting, so really wouldn’t want to comment on fiscal policy really, or trade policy.”
