Federal Reserve’s Goolsbee identifies inflation as biggest problem facing US economy

Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee isn’t mincing words about what keeps him up at night. In an interview with Wired on August 11, Goolsbee declared that inflation has overtaken every other economic concern, including the specter of mass job losses that has dominated headlines for much of 2026. “The biggest problem facing our economy right now is not the collapse of industry and the collapse of jobs; it’s that the prices have been rising too fast, we got an inflation problem and people hate inflation,” Goolsbee said. A labor market that’s fine, but not great Goolsbee characterized the current employment picture as stable, pointing to metrics like the unemployment rate, hiring rate, and layoff rate as evidence that the jobs market isn’t in crisis. But “stable” came with an asterisk. He described conditions as stable “without being good,” a phrasing that suggests the economy is treading water rather than swimming laps. A consistent drumbeat on prices This isn’t a one-off comment from Goolsbee. He has been sounding the inflation alarm with increasing urgency throughout 2026. In May and June, he raised similar concerns, zeroing in on persistent services inflation and ques...