How Fed key interest rate hikes will affect your credit card, mortgage
The Federal Reserve hiked its key interest rate to tame inflation. Here’s why there may be more rate hikes coming.
Just the FAQs, USA TODAY
Is the cure worse than the disease?
The Federal Reserve is hiking interest rates at its most aggressive pace in decades to bring down inflation that hit a 40-year high of 9.1% in June. But the campaign has sharply increased the odds of a recession, with a Wells Fargo economist and others forecasting a downturn by early next year.
Fed officials have acknowledged the risk but vowed not to back off until they’ve reined in soaring prices, effectively saying they would tolerate a slump as part of the tradeoff.
“We’re not trying to have a recession,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell told reporters in late July after the central bank approved a three-quarters point rate increase for the second straight month.. But he noted the path (to avoiding one) “has clearly narrowed.”
The hard-nosed strategy has sparked a debate among some economists: Which is worse – inflation or the recession the Fed may bring about to extinguish it?
There’s no simple answer, of course.
“It’s like saying: Which is worse – a kidney stone or appendicitis?” says Mark Zandi, chief economist of Moody’s Analytics
And any answer is loaded with caveats.
Fed officials, after all, believe they can dodge a downturn. A report Friday showed the economy added a booming 528,000 jobs in July but initial jobless claims — a gauge of layoffs — are rising and job openings are falling, indicating a slowdown is likely coming.
And if the central bank did nothing, there’s a good chance inflation itself could spark a recession as consumers and businesses pull back spending, Zandi says.
At the same time, the Fed’s critics in Congress, such as Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., believe its approach is misguided.
While rate hikes can dampen consumer and business demand and lower inflation expectations – a source of inflation itself — they can’t affect key drivers of today’s inflation, such as supply chain bottlenecks and Russia’s war in Ukraine. And, they say, there are signs inflation will soon ease, pointing to falling commodity prices.
All that said, here’s a rough look at which would be worse — today’s 9% inflation or a mild to moderate recession that pushes unemployment from 3.6% to 4% and leads to about 4 million net job losses.
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Those who argue inflation is more damaging say:
Skyrocketing prices affect more people
“Inflation affects everyone whereas only some people lose their job in a recession,” says Stephen Miran, founder of Amberwave Partners, an investment firm, and former senior economic advisor at the Treasury Department during President Trump’s administration.
“While it’s terrible if anyone loses their job, the affect is not as broad-based as it is with inflation,” he said.
And top economists who predict a slide believe it won’t be as pernicious or widespread as the COVID-19-induced downturn of 2020 or the Great Recession of 2007-09, which were marked by 22 million and 8.7 million job losses, respectively.
That’s because the pandemic’s effects on the economy have been easing and household debt as a share of income is relatively low, leaving Americans in better shape to withstand a setback.
Inflation can be a vicious cycle
“Inflation is self-reinforcing and if you don’t address it, it just gets worse and worse by itself,” Miran says.
Runaway inflation leads consumers to expect that prices will continue to swirl higher. That, in turn, prompts them to demand bigger pay increases, which causes businesses to raise prices still higher to maintain profit margins, and so on.
Such a wage-price spiral was one of the main reasons for the persistent inflation of the 1970s and early 1980s, which peaked at 14.6% before massive Fed rate hikes triggered a recession and a moderation of soaring prices.
Inflation still hurts the economy
Even if steep price increases don’t cause a recession in the short term, they still hurt economic and job growth.
Consumers are pulling back spending because their solid wage gains aren’t keeping up with the price of gas, rent, food and other items, Miran and Zandi say.
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And businesses reduce investment because of a cloud of uncertainty: They don’t know when the unstable cycle will end, Zandi says. It all means less hiring and growth.
“Nothing works in the economy without price stability,” Powell told reporters last month.
Those who say a recession is worse argue:
Recession is a bigger blow to output
In a downturn, potential production is simply lost as businesses lay off workers and cancel projects, says Josh Bivens, director of research at the left-leaning Economic Policy Institute. The Great Recession and slow recovery from it wasted about $20 trillion of potential output, he says.
With inflation, a consumer’s higher prices often translate to more revenue for landlords, oil companies and other corporations, he says. “One person’s cost is another’s income,” he wrote in a recent blog.
“Recessions lead to a lower level of activity,” Bivens says. “Inflation mostly redistributes money.”
The benefits of that reshuffled income are not as obvious, though. While consumers often spend their money, companies may dole it out to investors through higher dividends or share buybacks.
Recessions also hurt lots of people
While only several million Americans may lose their jobs in a downturn, the effects are far broader, Bivens says. Tens of millions more see slower wage growth, he says. Others are underemployed because their hours are cut or they find themselves in lower-level jobs that don’t match their skills, Zandi says.
He estimates that 10% to 15% of workers either would lose their jobs or face underemployment in a recession.
Long-term scarring
A recession may affect fewer people, but the impact of each job loss is much more severe than higher prices, hurting the ability of many unemployed to pay basic expenses.
Layoffs also can result in long-term unemployment for some workers that can erode skills and lower wages and career paths for the long term, Bivens says.
Young adults who graduate college during a recession suffer earnings declines lasting a decade while some are permanently affected, according to a 2012 study published in the American Economic Journal.
All told, Zandi figures the economic toll from a severe inflation and a typical recession are about equal.
“They’re both bad,” he says.
Paul Davidson is USA TODAY’s senior economics correspondent. You can follow him on Twitter @PDavidsonusat and subscribe to our free Daily Money newsletter for personal finance tips and business news every Monday through Friday morning.
