Fed's Powell before Congress could show developing case for rate cut

[July 09, 2024]  By Howard Schneider

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday testifies before the Senate Banking Committee in a hearing likely to take stock of whether recent signs of slowed inflation and a slowing U.S. job market will prompt the central bank to accelerate its plans to cut interest rates.

At the Fed's June 11-12 meeting the median projection of 19 officials was for just a single quarter-point rate cut by the end of the year, but since then inflation data has come in weaker than expected and several policymakers - including Powell - have begun noting concerns about a slowing job market.

Data last week showed firms added a still-healthy 206,000 jobs in June, but revisions to prior months show the trend is lower, and Powell in recent public comments said the U.S. may be at the point where further weakening in the economy causes a jump in the unemployment rate.

The jobless rate already has been creeping higher, rising to 4.1% as of June from 3.4% in April of 2023, a number that matched a 55-year low.

The consumer price index meanwhile did not rise at all in May, and analysts anticipate another weak reading when data for June is released on Thursday.

"It is very much understood by us that we have two-sided risks," Powell said last week, capturing a sense among Fed officials that they can no longer be solely focused on lowering inflation in deciding how long to maintain their current tight monetary policy, but must also consider how rigorously to guard against slowing the economy too much.

"We understand that if the labor market softens too much perhaps we lose the expansion," Powell said at an economic conference in Portugal sponsored by the European Central Bank.

Whether that risk will prompt Powell to open the door to a rate cut as soon as September will be a chief focus when he appears before the Senate Banking Committee at 10 a.m. EDT (1400 GMT) in his latest semiannual round of congressional testimony on monetary policy. He will appear before the House Financial Services Committee at the same time on Wednesday.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell delivers remarks during a press conference following the announcement that the Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged, in Washington, U.S., June 12, 2024. REUTERS/Evelyn Hockstein/File Photo

The congressional hearings also typically see Powell questioned on a broad array of topics, and that grilling could be more extensive - and intense - ahead of a November presidential election.

The Fed next meets on July 30-31, and since the June meeting investors have increased bets the Fed will cut rates in September.

For that to happen Powell may well begin communicating that the door is at least open, paving the way for more explicit changes in the upcoming July statement indicating that inflation is approaching the central bank's 2% target.

The inflation target is set in reference to the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index, which as of May was increasing at a 2.6% year-over-year rate.

In a report to Congress released on Friday ahead of Powell's testimony, the Fed noted that there had been "moderate" continued progress on inflation this year, and good reason to believe that price pressures in the housing market, a significant contributor to inflation's recent persistence, were in decline.

Combined with concerns about the job market, that should "leave the Fed fretting more about the risk of recession than of sticky inflation," economists at Pantheon Macroeconomics wrote after the last jobs report.

(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Andrea Ricci)

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