Elizabeth Warren says Jerome Powell needs to come back from vacation and cut interest rates now
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images, Kevin Dietsch/Getty Images
- Sen. Elizabeth Warren has been a vocal critic of Fed Chair Jerome Powell's interest-rate hikes.
- Friday's weak jobs report suggests the Fed may have kept interest rates high for too long.
- Warren grilled Powell on X and said the time to cut interest rates is now.
Sen. Elizabeth Warren is grilling Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on social media following Friday's weak jobs report that showed a jump in the unemployment rate and a slowdown in hiring.
In an X post on Friday, the Massachusetts senator said that Powell "made a serious mistake not cutting rates" in light of the jobs report.
"He's been warned over and over again that waiting too long risks driving the economy into a ditch," she said. "The jobs data is flashing red."
The senator added: "Powell needs to cancel his summer vacation and cut rates now — not wait 6 weeks."
A report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics showed that the US unemployment rate unexpectedly rose between June and July from 4.1% to 4.3%.
The US also slowed down hiring to 114,000 jobs, missing the consensus expectation of 176,000, Business Insider reported.
Warren, a member of the Senate Banking Committee, has repeatedly criticized Powell for the interest-rate hikes the Fed has made 11 times since March 2022.
The current rate of 5.3% is a 23-year high.
During a committee hearing in March 2023, Warren told Powell that his rate hikes would cost Americans their jobs.
"So Chair Powell, if you could speak directly to the 2 million hard working people who have decent jobs today, who you're planning to get fired over the next year, what would you say to them?" Warren asked at the time. "How would you explain your view that they need to lose their jobs?"
Powell responded that inflation was "hurting the working people of this country badly."
The Fed Chair said on Wednesday that a rate cut "could be on the table" when the Fed meets September 17-18.
"We're getting closer to the point at which it'll be appropriate to reduce our policy rate, but we're not quite at that point," Powell said.