«Monetary policy also operates with the lag and experience suggests that tightness in the labor market gradually and with the lag tends to push up wage and price inflation and that’s also a risk, that we want to be careful not to allow the economy to overheat in a way that would force us later on, somewhere down the road to have to tighten monetary policy rapidly which could cause a recession and threaten the very desirable labor market conditions that we have now.»

Janet Yellen, Chair, Federal Reserve,
Q&A post-FOMC Sept. 20 meeting