Richmond Fed’s Barkin warns inflation, jobs data may alter Fed outlook in World Economy News 06/03/2026 Richmond Fed President Tom Barkin said Thursday that persistent inflation and stronger recent employment figures could shift the Federal Reserve’s risk assessment, as the U.S. conflict with Iran threatens to push consumer prices higher. The Fed implemented rate cuts last year based on “the sense that the risks of the labor market were up while the risk to inflation were down. The data that’s come in over the last couple months suggests it has moved in the other direction,” Barkin said on Bloomberg Television. Barkin pointed to an upcoming report expected to show the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index remains about a percentage point above the Fed’s 2% target. “With the PCE numbers that we’re expecting next week, you’ve got a couple months of relatively high inflation. That certainly puts pause to any conclusion that we’re done fighting this,” he said. The Richmond Fed president also addressed how the U.S.-Israel war with Iran could affect monetary policy decisions. “Gas prices, obviously, if they’re up, that is inflationary,” Barkin said. “Textbook monetary policy would be you look through a short-term shock, but you don’t look through a long-term shock, and I think that’s a lot of the assessment people are going to have to make.” Fed officials are scheduled to meet March 17-18 and have indicated they will likely hold rates steady for a second consecutive time as they seek more progress on inflation. Policymakers have also adopted the view that the labor market is stabilizing, contributing to their caution about additional rate cuts following three reductions at the end of 2025. Source: Investing.com 2026-03-06 hellenicshippingnews... window.___gcfg = {lang: 'en-US'}; (function(w, d, s) { function go(){ var js, fjs = d.getElementsByTagName(s)[0], load = function(url, id) { if (d.getElementById(id)) {return;} js = d.createElement(s); js.src = url; js.id = id; fjs.parentNode.insertBefore(js, fjs); }; load('//connect.facebook.net/en/all.js#xfbml=1', 'fbjssdk'); load('https://apis.google.com/js/plusone.js', 'gplus1js'); load('//platform.twitter.com/widgets.js', 'tweetjs'); } if (w.addEventListener) { w.addEventListener("load", go, false); } else if (w.attachEvent) { w.attachEvent("onload",go); } }(window, document, 'script')); tweet Share