Powell Says the U.S. Economy Can Handle the Omicron Variant

(Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said he’s comfortable the economy can handle the omicron variant in a news conference Wednesday.

“There’s a lot of uncertainty” with the new variant, and “it’s not clear how big the effects would be on either inflation, or growth or hiring,” Powell said following the Federal Open Market Committee rate decision. He also said, however, as wave upon wave of Covid has hit the U.S. economy, the population has increasingly learned to live with it and people are getting vaccinated.

Federal Reserve officials intensified their battle against inflation by shifting to end their asset-buying program earlier and signaling they favor raising interest rates in 2022 at a faster pace than economists were expecting.

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