US FOMC Member Waller Speaks

Fed's Waller: Want markets to have as much information as possible Fed's Waller: Surprising people is not a good idea. Fed's Waller: Will Treat Another Higher Reading On Inflation As A ‘Signal, Not Noise’ - It Will Be A Useful Signal - If Inflation Comes Down In Next Reading, Will Need A Couple More That Way To See That As 'Signal'

Thank you, Yelena, and thank you for the opportunity to speak to you today. My subject is the outlook for the U.S. economy and the implications for monetary policy. Spending by households and businesses has been resilient, despite higher goods costs generated by tariffs and the surge in energy prices from the Middle East conflict. The labor market has also been stable, with employment close to the Federal Open Market Committee's (FOMC) maximum-employment goal. So I feel the real side of the economy is in good shape. But I believe inflation and monetary policy are at a crossroads. Despite higher tariffs in 2025, core inflation held steady for most of the year. But it then began to rise in January. After the Middle East conflict disrupted production and transportation of petroleum and other commodities, this increase accelerated. Conventional wisdom among central bankers is to look through one-time price increases, such as those associated with higher tariffs and a jump in oil prices. But, at this point, I am concerned about the elevated pace of core inflation this year, which has steadily moved up—as measured by the 12-month personal consumption expenditures (PCE) rate—from 3 percent in December 2025 to 3.4 percent in May. Core inflation excludes the direct effects of consumer energy prices, and we are past the point where we can attribute large price increases to earlier tariff hikes. So, the question is, will core inflation continue on its upward trajectory, or has it reached a turning point where it will begin to decline back toward our 2 percent target? The direction it takes has very different implications for the path of monetary policy. Because core inflation is a good guide to future inflation, I am concerned that, if this upward trend continues, it will be hard to push inflation back toward the Committee's 2 percent goal with monetary policy at its current setting. As I said in a May 22 speech, I am cognizant of the mistake we made in 2021 by not responding sooner to the high inflation we observed, and I am determined to avoid repeating it.2 But the desire to avoid past mistakes is often the author of new ones. I argued in remarks on July 6 that one of the most important jobs of a policymaker is to clearly assess current economic conditions and not just rely on past experience to guide judgments of where policy should be headed.3 As I will explain, there are some crucial differences now compared with 2021, and there is still a credible case for inflation to begin to fall back to our 2 percent goal with policy at its current setting. But I am concerned about the equally plausible case that data in the coming weeks will show that inflation will remain at its elevated level or even trend higher, requiring tighter monetary policy in the near term. I am committed to returning inflation to the FOMC's 2 percent g FED'S WALLER SAYS HE IS COMMITTED TO RETURNING INFLATION TO 2% TARGET; ALSO TO AVOID OVER-TIGHTENING POLICY AND RISKING RECESSION || CONCERNED ABOUT EQUALLY PLAUSIBLE CASE THAT TIGHTER POLICY WILL BE NEEDED FED'S WALLER SAYS HE EXPECTS A DECELERATION IN HEADLINE INFLATION STARTING WITH THIS WEEK'S INFLATION DATA; BUT WILL BE FOCUSED ON CORE READING || REAL SIDE OF ECONOMY IN GOOD SHAPE WALLER SAYS HE IS DETERMINED TO AVOID REPEATING FED'S MISTAKE IN 2021; BUT LABOR MARKET NOT AS TIGHT NOW, AND INFLATION EXPECTATIONS ANCHORED || HOUSEHOLD, BUSINESS SPENDING RESILIENT DESPITE HIGHER GOODS COSTS FROM TARIFFS, ENERGY PRICE SURGE FROM MIDDLE EAST CONFLICT Waller: We’re past the point where we can attribute past increases to tariffs. “No matter how you cut it, or what measure you want to use, inflation is up this year” “Sometimes a big change in only one component of core prices can move the total significantly without reflecting…

FED'S WALLER: FED POLICYMAKERS HAVE ALWAYS BEEN COMMITTED TO INFLATION TARGET, IT IS A ‘CREDIBLE PLEDGE’ Fed's Waller: The risks have flipped around, the labor market seems stabilized, and inflation has been taking off, which changes how you think about policy. Fed's Waller when asked about Warsh recommitting to the inflation target: He has never been anything but committed.

Thank you, Isabel, and thank you to the organizers for the invitation to be part of this discussion.1 As we get closer to the dinner hour, I will give you two thoughts to chew on about how monetary policy transmission has worked in the recent past and how that affects my view of appropriate actions when facing current challenges. The first of these is that initial conditions are crucial. To decide where policy should go, you need a clear sense of where you are starting from. By "initial conditions," I mean what is currently happening—not some average of experience in the past. This lesson was brought home to me during the rapid escalation of inflation in the United States following the pandemic. Based on past experience, a considerable share of the economic profession believed that the rapid tightening of financial conditions needed to bring down inflation would unavoidably cause a sharp increase in unemployment. And while this expectation was a good summary of what had happened in the past, in 2022, it was a poor predictor of what would happen from tightening policy because initial conditions at that time were so different. In particular, the combination of a negative labor supply shock along with a booming economy fueled by fiscal and monetary stimulus led to a situation in early 2022 where the ratio of job vacancies to unemployed workers was 2—a level never seen before. This initial condition for job vacancies was critical to understanding how tightening monetary policy would affect the labor market. Historically, changes in labor demand had minor Fed's Waller: Forward guidance can be a hindrance if it is too strong or rigid. Fed's Waller: Forward guidance also problematic when policymakers confront different economic outcomes all with a significant probability of occurring. Fed's Waller: When it works, forward guidance can speed the impact of monetary policy, as in late 2021. Fed's Waller does not comment on current economic policy outlook.

Thank you, Beth Anne, and I would like to welcome everyone to the fifth installment of this Conference on the International Roles of the U.S. Dollar.1 Over the years, this gathering has aimed to bring together different perspectives to better understand the forces shaping the dollar's central role in the global financial system. Last year's conference, for instance, focused on global investor allocation to U.S. safe assets and their liquidity in a time of geopolitical and technological change. This year, we are here to discuss the implications of financial innovations, especially digital assets such as stablecoins, for the international roles of the U.S. dollar. One striking feature of these discussions has been how rapidly the underlying questions have evolved since the first conference in the series. While the traditional drivers of the central role of the U.S. dollar in the global monetary system—from the size, strength, and depth of the U.S. economy and financial markets to trust in U.S. institutions and rule of law—remain critically important today, the environment around these drivers is changing rapidly. Technological innovation is increasingly altering how households and businesses interact with dollars, whether it is through holding new types of assets or through changes to the payment rails by which dollar-denominated assets are transferred, intermediated, and settled. Distributed ledger technologies and tokenized assets, such as stablecoins, are creating new channels for global dollar intermediation that operate alongside, or sometimes in conjunction with, traditional banking and payment systems. As a result, the dollar's international role is also evolving. The private sector is moving rapidly to expand access to dollar-denominated assets, innovate in new financial services, and explore potential business opportunities that perhaps did not make sense with legacy technologies. In doing so, there will be complements to the traditional financia Fed's Waller: Dollar’s global role changing with technology Fed Governor Waller did not comment on the economic or monetary policy outlook in his remarks.