<p><span>It is a pleasure to join the Economic Club of New York for this discussion.</span><a href="https://www.federalreserve.gov/newsevents/speech/brainard20210601a.htm#fn1" title="footnote 1"><span>1</span></a><a name="f1"></a><span> Consumer demand is strong, vaccine coverage is expanding, and pandemic-affected sectors are reopening in fits and starts. As was the pandemic shutdown with its ebbs and flows, the reopening is without precedent, and it is generating supply–demand mismatches at the sectoral level that are temporary in nature. Separating signal from noise in the high-frequency data may be challenging for a stretch. The supply–demand mismatches at the sectoral level are making it difficult to precisely assess inflationary developments and the amount of resource slack from month to month.</span></p>