'Raising interest rates certainly won't stop business from exploiting all these crises to jack up prices,' said Senator Sherrod Brown, a Democrat from Ohio who chairs the committee. 'Will working people be better off if we just walk away from our jobs and inflation rebounds?' Powell retorted. 'You claim there is only one solution: Lay off millions of workers,' Warren said. Senators responded with a broad set of questions and pointed criticism around whether the Fed was diagnosing the inflation problem correctly and if price pressures could be tamed without significant damage to economic growth and the job market.ĭemocrats on the committee focused on the role high corporate profits may be playing in persistent inflation, with Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts charging that the Fed was 'gambling with people's lives' through rate hikes that, by the central bank's most recent projections, would lead the unemployment rate to increase by more than a percentage point - a loss associated in the past with economic recessions. 1 news conference was not unfolding smoothly. The comments were Powell's first since inflation unexpectedly jumped in January, and marked a stark acknowledgement that the 'disinflationary process' he spoke of repeatedly in a Feb. 'If the totality of the data were to indicate that faster tightening is warranted, we would be prepared to increase the pace of rate hikes,' Powell said. While some of that unexpected economic strength may have been due to warm weather and other seasonal effects, Powell said it may also be a sign the Fed needs to do more to temper inflation, perhaps even returning to larger rate increases than the quarter-percentage-point steps officials had been intending to use going forward. central bank chief said in his semi-annual testimony before the Senate Banking Committee. 'The latest economic data have come in stronger than expected, which suggests that the ultimate level of interest rates is likely to be higher than previously anticipated,' the U.S. WASHINGTON, March 7 (Reuters) - The Federal Reserve will likely need to raise interest rates more than expected in response to recent strong data and is prepared to move in larger steps if the 'totality' of incoming information suggests tougher measures are needed to control inflation, Fed Chair Jerome Powell told U.S.

7 times table up to 20