CLEVELAND — In a speech Tuesday marked by large doses of both statistics and humility, Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said that the economic outlook is highly uncertain, suggesting that the central bank may move slowly in raising interest rates and scaling back easy-money policies.
The Fed has been moving to reduce monetary support for the economy based on an assessment that the labor market is strengthening and that inflation will soon stabilize.
Last week, the Fed began unwinding the massive bond-buying effort it began after the financial crisis of 2007-2008 and signaled another interest rate hike would come by year’s end.
But Yellen suggested a future policy course was uncertain.
“My colleagues and I may have misjudged the strength of the labor market,” she said at a conference of the National Association for Business Economics in Cleveland.
Send questions/comments to the editors.
