Fmr. Obama Econ. Adviser Furman: We’ve ‘Done the Really Easy Disinflation’ and It’s Going to Get ‘Harder’

On Wednesday’s broadcast of CNBC’s “Closing Bell: Overtime,” Professor of the Practice of Economic Policy at Harvard University and the Harvard Kennedy School Jason Furman, who served as Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Barack Obama and on the Council of Economic Advisers and the National Economic Council under President Bill Clinton, stated that we’ve already “done the really easy disinflation” and it’s only going to get harder from here. Furman also stated that it’s “very unlikely” that inflation will reach the Federal Reserve’s target level of 2% with the unemployment rate only rising to 4.5%, the figure the Federal Reserve had previously projected the unemployment rate to hit by the end of the year.

Furman said, “I think the further down you drive inflation, the harder it gets. We’ve done the really easy disinflation already. If you’ve gotten the unemployment rate [rising] to 4.5%, which is what the Fed has penciled in, I think that would help get inflation down. I think that would be very unlikely to get inflation down to 2.0%, which the chair said was his goal. Although, I’m not positive that ultimately should be the goal. I think ending up a little bit higher than that might be just fine.”

Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett