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Investing.com — Cleveland Federal Reserve President Beth Hammack and Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said inflation poses a greater challenge than employment, signaling support for tighter monetary policy as the Iran war drives up energy prices while the job market remains sluggish.
The two officials provided their economic assessments using a four-color scheme during a joint interview with The Indicator from Planet Money podcast, ranging from “the house is on fire” red to “everything is looking swell” green.
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“At least orange. Orange with a chance of meatballs; it hasn’t been great,” Goolsbee said of the inflation outlook amid rising gasoline prices. “I was optimistic that we would get back to this path to 2% inflation, but yikes, it’s going from orange to red lately — we had tariffs increasing prices, that was supposed to go away, kind of didn’t go away, and now we add another stagflationary shock on top ….it’s a troubling moment.”
Hammack also expressed concern about inflation, which has run above target for five years and has been “basically moving sideways” for the past two years. “It’s definitely at the brighter, the more vibrant color orange: I don’t know if that’s burnt orange, burnt sienna: my Crayola box is a little bit old,” she said.
The interview was recorded on Wednesday, two days before the Labor Department’s March jobs report showed the largest monthly payrolls gain since Donald Trump began his second presidential term in January. The unemployment rate fell to 4.3%, mainly because large numbers of workers left the labor force.
Hammack said the unemployment rate is currently near where she estimates full employment should be. While it is a “fragile type of balance,” her labor market outlook is yellow to green, or “like the Diet Mountain Dew” favored by one of her fellow Fed policymakers.
The financial system is “generally green” despite stock market losses since the start of the Iran war, and the economy is in a good place from a financial stability standpoint, Hammack said.
Goolsbee gave the labor market a “yellow” rating because of its low-hiring, low-firing state, largely explained by continued uncertainty. He said he is satisfied with payment systems but “a little more anxious” about asset prices. “It does look like there is a lot of frothiness,” he said, adding it is unclear whether that is productivity-driven or a bubble waiting to pop.
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