Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Tuesday advised that inflation could hit the United States for a while before eventually letting up.
Yellen told CNBC’s “Squawk Box” that inflationary pressures are “transitory” at this time but cautioned “that doesn’t mean they’ll go away over the next several months.” She added that she trusts the fed “to make the right decisions.”
“Well, I still try to pay attention to what’s happening in the economy,” Yellen stated. “I trust the Fed to make the right decisions.”
“You know, we have been hit by an incredibly unusual shock,” she added. “And on the one hand, we’re almost 6 million jobs short of where we were before the pandemic, which means a lot of people who still need jobs. On the other hand, many firms are finding it difficult to hire. We have had extraordinary shifts in the pattern of demand, away from services and to our goods, and I know the Fed is trying to sort through the implications of that supply bottlenecks have developed that have caused inflation. I believe that they are transitory, but that doesn’t mean they will go away over the next several months.”
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