Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday on CNN’s “State of the Union” that she thinks the recent rising prices will stabilize in 2022.
Anchor Jake Tapper said, “The Biden administration is trying to reach this deal to spend about another $2 trillion — makes a total of an extraordinary $5 trillion in spending this year. Inflation is growing at its fastest pace in 30 years. If the economy is already overheating, is spending even more money essential pouring gas on the inflation fire?”
Yellen said, “Well, the additional spending in the infrastructure package, and in the Build Back Better package, both of those are spending over ten years, not in a single year. The rescue package did involve substantial spending this year. Let’s remember that a benefit of that package is that unemployment is declined to 4.8%, that Americans tell us that they feel confident they can find jobs now, the size of the labor force that is declined. It’s not moved back to pre-pandemic levels, in part because of COVID, because of health concerns, because of child care concerns, school concerns.”
She added, “This is temporary pains that result from a COVID economy.”
Tapper said, “Let me ask about that. While it’s impacting everything from gas price to, say, groceries, when do you expect the inflation to get back to the 2% range, which is considered normal? 2022? 2023? When?”
Yellen said, “Well, I expect that to happen next year. Monthly rates of inflation have already fallen substantially from the very high rates that we saw in the spring and early summer.”
Follow Pam Key on Twitter @pamkeyNEN
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