Beautiful Virgin Islands

Tuesday, Oct 14, 2025

Jerome Powell: US central bank boss says he plans to raise rates

Jerome Powell: US central bank boss says he plans to raise rates

The US central bank's boss has indicated that he plans to press ahead with interest rate increases this month.

Speaking in front of Congress, Jerome Powell said he's in favour of a 0.25 point increase, aimed at tackling the surging cost of living.

The bank is under pressure to rein in inflation as prices in the US rise at the fastest rate in 40 years.

Analysts expect a rate hike in March, which would be the first since 2018.

It comes as costs for food, fuel and cars have risen sharply in recent months, leaving families' budgets strained.

Mr Powell admitted that he was open to further interest rate increases further down the line if inflation, which measures how quickly the cost of living rises over time, remains "persistently high."

The idea of raising interest rates is to keep those current and predicted price rises under control.

Higher interest rates make borrowing more expensive, for example. For households, that could mean higher mortgage costs, although - for the vast majority of homeowners - the impact is not immediate, and some will escape it entirely.

Many central banks, including the Federal Reserve in the US, aim to keep inflation contained at 2%.

Mr Powell acknowledged that price increases have jumped far above that target. In January, the increase in the cost of living jumped by 7.5% when compared with a year earlier.

"The inflation that we're experiencing is just nothing like anything we've experienced in decades," he said.

At the start of the pandemic, the Federal Reserve slashed rates to zero in a bid to stimulate spending and the economy at a time when many sectors were shut-down.

But a mix of issues, such as high demand as restrictions ease, labour shortages and supply chain problems have led to increases in the cost of goods in particular.


The chairman of America's central bank Jerome Powell has made it a point during his tenure of trying to demystify what the Federal Reserve does. He is committed to explaining what policymakers are doing and why because of what happened during the 2008 financial crisis.

Even by those standards, he was unusually blunt during his semi-annual Congressional testimony.

Mr Powell telegraphing explicitly what he wants to do at the central bank's next meeting in two weeks: proposing a quarter percentage point rate increase, while moving carefully and watching the economic implications of war in Ukraine.

Even before Russia's invasion, the Fed had a tough job on its hands trying to tame soaring inflation. A series of rate hikes were already expected this year.

But the conflict in Ukraine has complicated that job. The invasion is likely to undermine global growth while pushing up prices, especially for energy and food.

Given the uncertainty, Mr Powell is taking the view that a cautious approach is best and is putting all his cards on the table.

'Significant hardship'


The chair recognised that "high inflation imposes significant hardship" on people and said the Bank will use all its tools to ensure the increased prices do not become "entrenched".

The Fed is not alone in its plans to raise interest rates from their current levels. The Bank of England raised interest rates twice in three months and drew outrage when its boss asked workers not to ask for a pay rise to try to stop prices rising out of control.

Looking ahead, Jerome Powell said that the Fed expects inflation "to decline over the course of the year as supply constraints ease... we are attentive to the risks of potential further upward pressure" on prices.

He cautioned, however, that the invasion of Ukraine, and sanctions imposed by Western countries, create a great deal of uncertainty around the prices of wheat, oil, and other goods.

"The near-term effects on the US economy of the invasion of Ukraine, the ongoing war, the sanctions, and of events to come, remain highly uncertain," he said in his semi-annual testimony to Congress.

"We will be monitoring the situation closely."

On Wednesday, oil prices surged again despite the US and other members of the International Energy Agency agreeing to release 60 million barrels of emergency stockpiles.

Russia is one of the world's largest oil and gas exporters, but US President Biden has not ruled out banning imports from the country.

Newsletter

Related Articles

Beautiful Virgin Islands
0:00
0:00
Close
EU Deploys New Biometric Entry/Exit System: What Non-EU Travelers Must Know
Australian Prime Minister’s Private Number Exposed Through AI Contact Scraper
Ex-Microsoft Engineer Confirms Famous Windows XP Key Was Leaked Corporate License, Not a Hack
China’s lesson for the US: it takes more than chips to win the AI race
Australia Faces Demographic Risk as Fertility Falls to Record Low
California County Reinstates Mask Mandate in Health Facilities as Respiratory Illness Risk Rises
Israel and Hamas Agree to First Phase of Trump-Brokered Gaza Truce, Hostages to Be Freed
French Political Turmoil Elevates Marine Le Pen as Rassemblement National Poised for Power
China Unveils Sweeping Rare Earth Export Controls to Shield ‘National Security’
The Davos Set in Decline: Why the World Economic Forum’s Power Must Be Challenged
France: Less Than a Month After His Appointment, the New French Prime Minister Resigns
Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán stated that Hungary will not adopt the euro because the European Union is falling apart.
Sarah Mullally Becomes First Woman Appointed Archbishop of Canterbury
Mayor in western Germany in intensive care after stabbing
Australian government pays Deloitte nearly half a million dollars for a report built on fabricated quotes, fake citations, and AI-generated nonsense.
US Prosecutors Gained Legal Approval to Hack Telegram Servers
Macron Faces Intensifying Pressure to Resign or Trigger New Elections Amid France’s Political Turmoil
Standard Chartered Names Roberto Hoornweg as Sole Head of Corporate & Investment Banking
UK Asylum Housing Firm Faces Backlash Over £187 Million Profits and Poor Living Conditions
UK Police Crack Major Gang in Smuggling of up to 40,000 Stolen Phones to China
BYD’s UK Sales Soar Nearly Nine-Fold, Making Britain Its Biggest Market Outside China
Trump Proposes Farm Bailout from Tariff Revenues Amid Backlash from Other Industries
FIFA Accuses Malaysia of Forging Citizenship Documents, Suspends Seven Footballers
Latvia to Bar Tourist and Occasional Buses to Russia and Belarus Until 2026
A Dollar Coin Featuring Trump’s Portrait Expected to Be Issued Next Year
Australia Orders X to Block Murder Videos, Citing Online Safety and Public Exposure
Three Scientists Awarded Nobel Prize in Medicine for Discovery of Immune Self-Tolerance Mechanism
OpenAI and AMD Forge Landmark AI-Chip Alliance with Equity Option
Munich Airport Reopens After Second Drone Shutdown
France Names New Government Amid Political Crisis
Trump Stands Firm in Shutdown Showdown and Declares War on Drug Cartels — Turning Crisis into Opportunity
Surge of U.S. Billionaires Transforms London’s Peninsula Apartments into Ultra-Luxury Stronghold
Pro Europe and Anti-War Babiš Poised to Return to Power After Czech Parliamentary Vote
Jeff Bezos Calls AI Surge a ‘Good’ Bubble, Urges Focus on Lasting Innovation
Japan’s Ruling Party Chooses Sanae Takaichi, Clearing Path to First Female Prime Minister
Sean ‘Diddy’ Combs Sentenced to Fifty Months in Prison Following Prostitution Conviction
Taylor Swift’s ‘Showgirl’ Launch Extends Billion-Dollar Empire
Trump Administration Launches “TrumpRx” Plan to Enable Direct Drug Sales at Deep Discounts
Trump Announces Intention to Impose 100 Percent Tariff on Foreign-Made Films
Altman Says GPT-5 Already Outpaces Him, Warns AI Could Automate 40% of Work
Singapore and Hong Kong Vie to Dominate Asia’s Rising Gold Trade
Trump Organization Teams with Saudi Developer on $1 Billion Trump Plaza in Jeddah
Manhattan Sees Surge in Office-to-Housing Conversions, Highest Since 2008
Switzerland and U.S. Issue Joint Assurance Against Currency Manipulation
Electronic Arts to Be Taken Private in Historic $55 Billion Buyout
Thomas Jacob Sanford Named as Suspect in Deadly Michigan Church Shooting and Arson
Russian Research Vessel 'Yantar' Tracked Mapping Europe’s Subsea Cables, Raising Security Alarms
New York Man Arrested After On-Air Confession to 2017 Parents’ Murders
U.S. Defense Chief Orders Sudden Summit of Hundreds of Generals and Admirals
Global Cruise Industry Posts Dramatic Comeback with 34.6 Million Passengers in 2024
×