{
  "id": 8946205,
  "title": "Federal Reserve official says fighting inflation likely to be ‘painful’",
  "url": "https://urgent.news/2026/09/21/federal-reserve-official-says-fighting-inflation-likely-to-be-painful",
  "topic": "finance",
  "section": "Finance & Markets",
  "published": "2026-09-21T15:02:36.000Z",
  "source": {
    "name": "Winnipeg Free Press",
    "slug": "winnipeg-free-press",
    "url": "https://www.winnipegfreepress.com/business/2026/09/21/federal-reserve-official-says-fighting-inflation-likely-to-be-painful"
  },
  "original_language": "en",
  "account": "Federal Reserve official Austan Goolsbee warned on Monday that the central bank may need to inflict economic hardship, such as higher unemployment, to tackle persistently high inflation. The Fed is grappling with a series of ongoing supply shocks, including elevated oil prices stemming from the Iran conflict and tariffs, which have driven up inflation. While the usual course of action would be for the central bank to wait for these shocks to subside and for inflation to naturally decrease, Goolsbee stated that the Fed now has no choice but to raise interest rates. These hikes are necessary to curb consumer and business demand, aligning it with the reduced supply and helping to bring inflation back to the Fed's 2% objective. Goolsbee emphasized that achieving this goal in the short term would entail pushing employment below its target. He described the necessary trade-off between the Fed's goals of low inflation and maximum employment as being \"painful.\" This stance contrasts with Fed Chairman Kevin Warsh's remarks from the previous week, where he stated that the central bank should not harm labor markets to meet its objectives. Historically, interest rate hikes have often slowed growth and even led to recessions; however, during 2022-2023, the Fed's aggressive rate hikes led to a decline in inflation without a significant increase in unemployment or an economic slowdown.",
  "summary": null,
  "key_points": [],
  "editors_take": null,
  "illustration": null,
  "coverage": {
    "outlets": 1,
    "also_reported_by": []
  },
  "ai_generated": true,
  "disclaimer": "Summaries, key points and the editor’s take are written by software from other outlets’ reporting and may contain errors — always check the linked original."
}