Powell: Higher rates unlikely to cause deep US recession

By CHRISTOPHER RUGABER
AP Economics Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) — The last time the Federal Reserve faced inflation as high as it is now, in the early 1980s, it jacked up interest rates to double-digit levels — and in the process caused a deep recession and sharply higher unemployment. On Thursday, Chair Jerome Powell suggested that this time, the Fed won’t have to go nearly as far. “We think we can avoid the very high social costs that Paul Volcker and the Fed had to bring into play to get inflation back down,” Powell said in an interview at the Cato Institute, referring to the Fed chair in the early 1980s who sent short-term borrowing rates to roughly 19% to throttle punishingly high inflation.