By Jarrett Renshaw

(Reuters) – U.S. President Biden will meet Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Tuesday as historic inflation continues to drain Americans’ pocketbooks.

Biden is seeking to reduce gasoline and food costs, which have pushed inflation up to forty-year highs. This will be the first meeting since Powell’s Senate confirmation.

The White House faces many problems, such as inflation and Russian invasion of Ukraine.

Biden will felicitate Powell upon his confirmation. He’ll also discuss U.S. economic and global issues, and the top priority of the president, “addressing inflation, transition from an historic economy recovery to stable and steady growth that works to work families”, a White House official stated.

Already, the Fed raised interest rates 3/4 percent this year. It plans to increase rates by half an percentage point at each of its next two meetings. There may be more rate hikes after those meetings.

Some economists have criticized the Powell-led Fed for not being able to reduce high inflation, ending emergency support and starting interest rate increases.

Biden stated Monday in a Wall Street Journal opinion article that the main function of the Federal Reserve was to manage inflation.

Biden claimed that his “predecessor degraded the Fed” and that previous presidents tried to influence its decisions in inappropriate times of inflation. I won’t do this.”

U.S. consumer prices growth was slowing in April due to record low gasoline prices. This suggests that inflation may have peaked. However, it’s likely to remain high for some time and the Federal Reserve will continue to hold the pedal to reduce demand.