Powell Suggests Interest Rates Could Stay High for a Longer Period

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The Federal Reserve is likely to wait longer than initially expected to cut interest rates, given stubborn inflation readings in recent months, the central bank’s top two officials said Tuesday. Policymakers came into 2024 looking for evidence that inflation was continuing to cool rapidly, as it did late last year. Instead, progress on inflation has stalled or even reversed by some measures. “The recent data have clearly not given us greater confidence and instead indicate that it’s likely to take longer than expected to achieve that confidence,” Jerome H. Powell, the Fed chair, said at an event in Washington on Tuesday. In a separate speech on Tuesday, Philip N. Jefferson, the Fed’s vice chair, also said the central bank should be prepared to delay rate cuts if inflation remains hot. “While we have seen considerable progress in lowering inflation,” Mr. Jefferson said in a speech at a Fed research conference in Washington, “the job of sustainably restoring 2 percent inflation is not yet done.”