Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen says the high inflation in consumer prices that is stretching pocketbooks thin will spill over into 2022 before slowing down the second half of next year.
Ms. Yellen said Sunday that monthly rates of inflation have already fallen this year, but added that the “inflation rate will remain high into next year because of what has already happened.”
“But I expect improvement by the middle to end of next year,” she said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
As the economy recovers from the coronavirus pandemic, rising prices on everything from gas to groceries to used cars are hitting households hard across the country.
Experts say the inflation is the byproduct of supply chain issues and a demand from the pandemic.
The situation is creating headaches for President Biden and elected leaders as they look for ways to ease the financial burden and assure voters things are going to get better.
Former Treasury Secretary Larry Summers sounded the alarm last week, saying that monetary policy makers in the United States and across the globe are too focused on social agendas.
“We have a generation of central bankers who are defining themselves by their wokeness,” Mr. Summers said, according to Bloomberg News. “We’re in more danger than we’ve been during my career of losing control of inflation in the U.S.”
On Sunday, Ms. Yellen disagreed.
“I think he is wrong,” she said. “I don’t think we are about to lose control of inflation.”
“I agree, of course, we are going through a period of inflation that’s higher than Americans have seen in a long time, and it is something that is obviously a concern and worrying them, but we haven’t lost control,” she said.
