Economics
Surging Wages Are a ‘Super Core’ Push to Inflation, Summers Says
- Former Treasury chief speaks after record employment cost rise
- Summers repeats Fed must hike rates past 4% to tame inflation
This article is for subscribers only.
Former Treasury Secretary Lawrence Summers said that surging wages amount to a powerful underlying impulse to U.S. inflation that reinforces the need for the Federal Reserve to boost its benchmark interest rate well above the level most expect.
“We should be thinking in terms of wage or labor-cost inflation as a kind of ‘super core’ measure of inflation,” Summers told “Wall Street Week” on Bloomberg Television. “It’s hard to escape the conclusion that it’s running at 5.5% or more.”