Jeffrey Stein, White House economic reporter for The Washington Post, said Thursday that while the Treasury Department is aware of reports of a potential labor shortage and inflation, officials do not believe they currently represent major problems that require policy responses.
In an interview on Hill.TV’s “Rising,” Stein outlined his recent reporting in which he found that Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has privately cautioned officials against overreacting to anecdotes on inflation and worker shortages, adding that more data is needed to determine if there is a trend.
“There’s really, at least so far, no macro data to support these anecdotes, and normally, if we really were seeing tight labor markets to the extent that would maybe require policy response, you would see very fast wage growth at the bottom of the income distribution,” Stein explained.
The journalist went on to say that Yellen and others are currently saying, “‘Look, this recovery is picking up steam, that’s really exciting and really good, but we need to not take our foot off the gas too soon,” and “not try to respond to these businesses too quickly and do something that could stall the recovery in a dangerous way.”
Watch part of Stein’s interview above.
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