Biden needs to control the COVID pandemic to overcome rising inflation: US Treasury secy

US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen, during an interview, said that the Biden administration need to control the COVID pandemic in order to overcome the soaring inflation. While speaking to CNBC on Thursday, Yellen said that POTUS Joe Biden is confident that his administration will control the rising inflation which is growing at 40-year highs. During the interview, she reiterated the situation of the COVID-19 in the country would determine the upcoming years and the challenges that the country would face in the next few years. According to Yellen, inflation in the United States rose exponentially high that she and other economists didn't expect. 

"Inflation rose by more than most economists, including me, expected and of course, it's our responsibility with the Fed to address that," Yellen said during an interview with CNBC.

According to US Consumer Price Index, from December 2020 to December 2021, consumer prices for all items rose 7%, the largest December to December percentage change since 1981. Over the year, food prices increased 6.3%, a larger percentage increase than the 12-month increase of 3.9% in 2020. Food at home prices increased 6.5% in 2021, the largest over the year, as per the report published in December last year. "I expect inflation throughout much of the year... to remain above 2%. But if we’re successful in controlling the pandemic, I expect inflation to diminish over the course of the year and hopefully revert to normal levels by the end of the year around 2%," CNBC quoted Yellen as saying. 

US labour market has reached a new height, says Yellen

As the interview proceeded, she started defending the current situation with the Biden administration’s "economic achievements" in the past year. Further, the US Treasury Secretary reiterated under the Biden administration the country's labour market has reached a new height in the past year by creating an additional 6 million jobs and thus pushing the unemployment rate under 4%.
"A year ago, if you go back to the challenges that we were facing, and the Federal Reserve was facing, unemployment was extremely high. We were all worried that we would be facing a situation as we had after 2008, when it took almost a decade to get back to full employment," Yellen told while speaking to CNBC.

It is worth mentioning that the United States is reeling under the COVID surge, driven by the Omicron variant.  The country has recorded around 69 million COVID-19 cases since the start of the pandemic. In the past month, the US reported around 18 million Coronavirus cases, according to the US health agency.

Image: AP