New York Federal Reserve President John Williams believes the central bank has taken major steps in reducing inflation towards the 2% target, but it is still far from achieving the goal.
In prepared remarks on Friday, July 5th, Williams said, "We've seen substantial progress in bringing down the inflation rate, but we remain far from reaching the 2% target on a sustainable basis."
According to the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation measure, inflation was at 2.6% year-over-year in May, down from the pandemic peak of 7.1%.
To help slow the rise in prices, the Federal Reserve has kept interest rates in the range of 5.25%-5.50% since last July.
The minutes from the Fed's latest policy meeting, released last week, showed that policymakers were more confident that price pressures were easing, though Williams stressed that the Fed will always be guided by the full set of economic data it receives and won't take anything for granted.
The Fed official continued, "Uncertainty will continue to be a defining feature of the monetary policy landscape for the foreseeable future."
The Fed's semi-annual report to Congress showed that inflation is slowing and the U.S. job market is returning to pre-pandemic levels.
On the labor market front, the report noted that it continued to rebalance in the first half of this year, with a decline in labor demand and job openings falling across many sectors.
