Wall Street Today | Powell Says Fed Seeks Strong Labor Market Over a Sustained Period

The Federal Reserve is focused on achieving a good labor market for a sustained period, Chair Jerome Powell said at a roundtable event in York, Pennsylvania.

“Lots of good things happen” in addition to real wage increases when a good labor market lasts for a sustained period of time, Powell said Monday. There are expanded efforts to get more people into the workforce, for example, like programs that prepare prisoners for work a year before they are released.

The U.S. Senate on Saturday night, with mere hours left before a midnight deadline for a federal government shutdown, voted to advance a short-term stopgap funding measure.

Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams suggested that the US central bank may be done raising interest rates, though he said policymakers would keep them high for “some time” to bring inflation down to the central bank’s 2% goal.

“My current assessment is that we are at, or near, the peak level of the target range for the federal funds rate,” Williams said Friday in remarks prepared for an event in Long Island, New York. “I expect we will need to maintain a restrictive stance of monetary policy for some time.”

Oil prices fell, with the US benchmark tumbling below $90 a barrel, as worries about further interest rate increases and a slowdown in the economy roiled broader markets.

West Texas Intermediate traded near $89 a barrel, reversing course after an earlier increase of 1.2%. The S&P 500 slipped, and the dollar rose, with investors awaiting clues about the path of Federal Reserve interest rate policy.