Obviously, that explosive jobs report (released right after the fed's last announcement) took everyone by surprise, and changed market expectations about the future of fed rate hikes and pauses.
But this belief that many in the fed and many who watch the fed seem to have that our current low unemployment and high wage growth environment is something that needs to be reversed significantly before inflation can be tamed is far from proven. There's a link, but it ain't dollar to dollar.
If unemployment rose and wage growth slowed, it would put some downward pressure on prices, for sure. It would have a psychological effect on expectations that can become self fulfilling when entrenched. But a fed that is attempting to literally cause unemployment to increase and wages to decrease can't paper that over with technical words. There are plenty who want to break the back of workers specifically before they're willing to pull back in order to benefit the system.
There's an argument to be made that doing so may be necessary, that taking the long view requires some short term pain for some longer term stability, so I'm not labeling those who are pursuing that goal evil or anything. But it's important to recognize what they're trying to do and how they're trying to do it in a way less sanitized than artificially "bringing into better balance labor costs and availability with demand" or something.
There's this weird convergence of interests currently between the rich and the poor, who both benefit in the short term by an earlier pause in rate increases. For the rich, such a pause would be an opportunity for growth after a really bad year. For the poor, such a pause would be an opportunity to keep the amazing gains that have disproportionately benefitted them the past year (both in terms of job availability and elevated wage growth). What's left... the middle class? The middle class has been shrinking for decades, but so has the lower class... as social mobility has moved so many members of the middle class into the upper class. They certainly don't need the handout.
There are upsides to the fed's current path overall. They were overdue to start unwinding their balance sheet. We're not likely to return to zero interest rates, and probably will land back down more around the 3% mark or so once the dust settles... and we never should have gone down to zirp in the first place.
But whatever the positives, we should all pause at the thought that the way to a better world lies through breaking some eggs when those eggs are people and the models aren't universal or definitive. There are certainly ways for both fiscal and monetary policy to address inflation without intentionally fucking workers, and don't let any egghead tell you different.