Bringing resurgent inflation down was never expected to be so relatively pain-free. Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell warned of hard times ahead after the Fed began jacking up interest rates in 2022 to attack high inflation. Economists predicted that the much higher borrowing costs that resulted would cause a recession. Yet the recession never arrived, and none appears to be on the horizon. The labor market, though cooler than in the sizzling-hot years of 2022 and 2023, is still cranking out enough jobs to keep the unemployment rate near historic lows. The trend toward slower, but still healthy, hiring likely continued in December. The Labor Department is expected to report Friday that employers added a still-solid 160,000 jobs.
