Image “We will use our tools to get inflation back,” the Federal Reserve chair, Jerome Powell, said at his nomination hearing on Tuesday.Credit…Pool photo by Brendan SmialowskiJerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, said that a rapidly-healing economy no longer needed as much help from the central bank and emphasized that controlling inflation — which he and his colleagues can do by raising interest rates — would be a critical part of setting the stage for a long and stable expansion that boosts workers.Mr. Powell, who is testifying before members of the Senate Banking Committee on Tuesday as he seeks confirmation for a second term as chair, confronts a complicated economic moment as he moves toward another four-year stint as head of the world’s most powerful central bank.The economy is growing swiftly, but it has been buffeted by repeated waves of virus and by a surge in inflation that has proved stronger and longer lasting than economists had expected. Workers are finding jobs and winning wage increases, but the rising costs of housing, gas, food and furniture are pinching shoppers and tanking consumers’s confidence.The Fed is charged with maintaining price stability, and its officials have recently signaled that they could raise interest rates several times this year to try to cool the economy and prevent rapidly rising prices from becoming permanent. Mr. Powell — whom President Biden has nominated to a second term in his job — reiterated that commitment on Tuesday.“If we see inflation persisting at high levels longer than expected, if we have to raise interest rates more over time, we will,” Mr. Powell said. “We will use our tools to get inflation back.”But the central bank also has a second mandate: It is supposed to guide the economy toward full employment, a situation in which people who want to work and are able to do so can find job …
