Federal Reserve Chairman Powell: spending surge supply bottleneck prices will rise this year

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Thursday that a surge in spending as the economy reopens, coupled with bottlenecks in supply, could drive prices higher this year, but not lead to year-to-year inflationary price increases.

The International Monetary Fund predicts U.S. inflation will be 2.25 percent in 2022, slightly above the Fed’s 2 percent target.