Powell Excerpt: Continuing On Gradual Pace Seems Right

     WASHINGTON (MNI) - The following is a response of Federal Reserve Chairman

Jerome Powell to a question from a reporter at his press conference following

Wednesday's Federal Open Market Committee meeting.

Question: Thank you. You said at the beginning of your Press Conference that you

planned to be more plain spoken, and so, okay, I wanted to know what you would

say to workers who are worried that, you know, these path of rate hikes that

you've laid out will kind of undercut the wage growth they are just starting to

see. Thank you.

Powell: You know, I would say that the economy's in great shape. If you look at

household surveys, confidence is high. Look at businesses, confidence is high.

If you ask -- if you survey workers about the job market, they'll say that it's

a really good environment to find jobs. If you survey businesses, they'll say

that workers are scarce, so I think overall we have a really solid economy on

our hands here, and so what we're doing is we are trying to conduct monetary

policy in a way that will sustain that expansion, keep the labor markets strong,

and keep inflation above -- right at -- sorry, not above but right at 2%. That's

really what we're trying to do, and, you know, I would say I like the results so

far. We've been very, very careful not to tighten too quickly. I think we've

been patient. I think that patience has born fruit, and I think it continues to.

We had a lot of encouragement to go much faster, and I'm really glad we didn't,

but at this time, the -- continuing on that gradual pace seems -- continues to

seem like the right thing. If we get a sense that the economy is reacting badly,

then we'll certainly react to that.

--MNI Washington Bureau; +1 202-371-2121; email: holly.stokes@marketnews.com

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