Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen acknowledged in an interview on Tuesday that she was “wrong” about “the path that inflation would take,” as the lagging COVID-19 pandemic and Russian invasion in Ukraine have kept prices persistently high.
During an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer, the network played a clip of previous comments she made in 2021, in which she said inflation would be a “small risk” and added that she didn’t “anticipate that inflation is going to be a problem.”
“Well, look, I think I was wrong then about the path that inflation would take,” the Treasury secretary said when asked about her previous comments. “As I mentioned, there have been unanticipated and large shocks to the economy that have boosted energy and food prices and supply bottlenecks that haad mve affected our economy badly that I didn’t — at the time didn’t fully understand. But we recognize that now.”