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White House turns focus to inflation control
The White House says it’s focusing efforts on lowering prices Americans are paying after the recent Consumer Price Index Report showed prices jumped 7.5 percent last year.
David Kamin, the Deputy Director for the National Economic Council – which advises the President on economic policy, tells Brownfield that means insuring fair competition in markets like meat packing.
“That’s an area where there’s been concentrated industry of meat packing,” Kamin said. “They overcharge farmers and consumers. And that’s an area where we’re trying to work to address that; this month, we saw progress when it came to meat prices.”
He said strengthening U.S. supply chains will also mitigate costs, pointing to projects like the President’s port action plan…
“Where we’ve been working with ports across the country to try to ease supply chains…,” he said. “We’re also beginning to deploy some of the investments as part of the Bipartisan Infrastructure Law.”
Kamin said the Federal Reserve appropriately provided emergency support during the pandemic. In December, The Fed signaled it will be raising interest rates this year to curb spiking inflation.
“We respect the Federal Reserve’s independence,” he said. “They have the tools that they’ve obviously deployed during the pandemic to help preserve full employment and help the economy through an emergency. And they have the tools they need now to achieve that dual mandate of stable prices.”
January’s Consumer Price Index report reflected the highest year over year inflation since 1982.
