Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell made it clear on Friday that the US central bank will not shy away from cutting interest rates in the final weeks of the presidential election campaign and that protecting the labor market is now the top priority.
“It’s time for policy action,” Powell said in a speech at the Kansas City Fed’s annual Jackson Hole conference, a strong signal that the central bank will begin cutting rates in mid-September, about seven weeks before the Nov. 5 election.
His comments — essentially a declaration that the Fed’s fight against inflation is over and protecting jobs now tops the to-do list — came the morning after Vice President Kamala Harris accepted the Democratic nomination for president, a development that has upended a race that largely favored former President Donald Trump, the Republican nominee.
