(Bloomberg) — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said a surprisingly resilient US economy has prompted investors to question what it will take to bring inflation down, but she cast doubt on whether that would force interest rates to stay elevated for a long period.
“People are trying to figure out exactly what it’s going to take to keep inflation moving down,” Yellen said Tuesday in a moderated discussion at the Fortune CEO Initiative conference in Washington. “And the economic resilience that they see maybe suggest higher for longer, but we’ll see. I think it’s by no means a given.”
Yellen also said that it’s possible that higher rates of investment spending — such as on the green-energy transition — could imply higher interest rates over the longer haul. At the same time, the structural forces that held rates down in recent decades — such as demographic trends — remain “alive and well.”
“The answer is, I don’t know,” whether bond yields will stay high over the longer run, Yellen said. “It’s a great question and it’s one that’s very much on my and the administration’s minds.”
Yellen also said that it’s critical to maintain a “sustainable fiscal policy.” She said the current level of debt is manageable — as measured by how much the US spends each year to finance the federal debt as a share of gross domestic product, and adjusted for inflation. But she also indicated that higher long-term rates could pose a threat.
“The forecast we’ve made assumes that interest rates will rise toward more normal levels, but we are seeing a pretty significant increase in nominal” rates, she said.
Yellen also said that she’s “very optimistic” about the outlook for the US economy.
Economic Outlook
“Consumer spending remains strong, investment spending is solid” and the housing market has stabilized and “seems to be moving up,” she said. “Short term inflation is coming down in the context of an extremely strong labor market,” she also said.
Yellen’s comments come just a couple of days after a last-minute deal was struck to avoid a government shutdown, something the Treasury chief had warned could threaten the economic outlook.
She said that, now, “it’s urgent that Congress allocate funds for Ukraine — that hasn’t been done. That’s really our focus.”
Yellen declined to comment on the battle for House Speaker Kevin McCarthy to retain his post.
(Updates with further comments on interest rates, starting in headline.)
OTTAWA – The parliamentary budget officer says the federal government likely failed to keep its deficit below its promised $40 billion cap in the last fiscal year.
However the PBO also projects in its latest economic and fiscal outlook today that weak economic growth this year will begin to rebound in 2025.
The budget watchdog estimates in its report that the federal government posted a $46.8 billion deficit for the 2023-24 fiscal year.
Finance Minister Chrystia Freeland pledged a year ago to keep the deficit capped at $40 billion and in her spring budget said the deficit for 2023-24 stayed in line with that promise.
The final tally of the last year’s deficit will be confirmed when the government publishes its annual public accounts report this fall.
The PBO says economic growth will remain tepid this year but will rebound in 2025 as the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts stimulate spending and business investment.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 17, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says the level of food insecurity increased in 2022 as inflation hit peak levels.
In a report using data from the Canadian community health survey, the agency says 15.6 per cent of households experienced some level of food insecurity in 2022 after being relatively stable from 2017 to 2021.
The reading was up from 9.6 per cent in 2017 and 11.6 per cent in 2018.
Statistics Canada says the prevalence of household food insecurity was slightly lower and stable during the pandemic years as it fell to 8.5 per cent in the fall of 2020 and 9.1 per cent in 2021.
In addition to an increase in the prevalence of food insecurity in 2022, the agency says there was an increase in the severity as more households reported moderate or severe food insecurity.
It also noted an increase in the number of Canadians living in moderately or severely food insecure households was also seen in the Canadian income survey data collected in the first half of 2023.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct 16, 2024.
OTTAWA – Statistics Canada says manufacturing sales in August fell to their lowest level since January 2022 as sales in the primary metal and petroleum and coal product subsectors fell.
The agency says manufacturing sales fell 1.3 per cent to $69.4 billion in August, after rising 1.1 per cent in July.
The drop came as sales in the primary metal subsector dropped 6.4 per cent to $5.3 billion in August, on lower prices and lower volumes.
Sales in the petroleum and coal product subsector fell 3.7 per cent to $7.8 billion in August on lower prices.
Meanwhile, sales of aerospace products and parts rose 7.3 per cent to $2.7 billion in August and wood product sales increased 3.8 per cent to $3.1 billion.
Overall manufacturing sales in constant dollars fell 0.8 per cent in August.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Oct. 16, 2024.
