Yellen keeps a gradual rate-hike outlook as inflation puzzles the Fed

WASHINGTON (July 13): Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen said the US economy should continue to expand over the next few years, allowing the central bank to keep raising interest rates, while also stressing a gradual approach to tightening as the Fed monitors too-low inflation.

“Considerable uncertainty always attends the economic outlook,” Yellen said Wednesday in remarks delivered to the U.S House Financial Services Committee. “There is, for example, uncertainty about when -- and how much -- inflation will respond to tightening resource utilization.”

As is typical in her testimony before the panel, Yellen was asked a broad range of questions, including her views on the national debt, whether regulators have too much input into the decisions of private bank boards, and would she would accept another term as Fed chair.

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