Fed's Yellen Remains Mum on Timing of Rate Change; Chairwoman Unwilling to Signal Any Shift in Bank's Plans at Conference
JACKSON HOLE, Wyo.--Janet Yellen delivered a cliffhanger in the mountains of Wyoming.</br></br>Encouraged by progress in the U.S. labor market, but uncertain if it is enough, the Federal Reserve Board chairwoman and other officials who gathered here for a central-bank conference left the public guessing about when they will start raising short-term interest rates.</br></br>The annual economic symposium, sponsored by the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, marked an important bookend to a speech Ms. Yellen had delivered five months earlier to a conference of community organizers in Chicago.</br></br>Back then, Ms. Yellen argued with conviction that the U.S. economy was still far from what Fed officials call full employment--the highest level of hiring that can be reached without causing the economy to overheat and spark inflation.</br></br>The jobless rate was 6.7%, while 3.8 million Americans were out of work for six months or longer and 7.2 million more had part-time work but wanted full-time jobs. Wages were creeping up at a glacial pace. Ms. Yellen saw this as evidence that the economy was burdened with slack, which would allow her to keep short-term interest rates low far into the future.