WASHINGTON (AP) — Chair Jerome Powell acknowledged Tuesday that high inflation has emerged as a serious threat to the Federal Reserve’s goal of helping put more Americans back to work and that the Fed will raise rates more than it now plans if needed to stem surging prices.

“If we have to raise interest rates more over time, we will,” Powell said during a hearing of the Senate Banking Committee, which is considering his nomination for a second four-year term.

Powell and the central bank are under rising pressure to rein in inflation without ramping up interest rates so high that the economy tumbles into another recession.

Controlling inflation — without raising rates so high as to choke off the economic recovery — is critical to lowering unemployment, Powell said.

“We know that high inflation exacts a toll, particularly for those less able to meet the higher costs of essentials like food, housing, and transportation,” he told the committee.

At the Fed’s most recent meeting in December, Powell said the central bank is rapidly accelerating its efforts to tighten credit with the goal of reining in inflation.

Powell has previously said that the Fed’s initial goal was to restore the economy and job market to pre-pandemic levels, when the unemployment rate had fallen to a 50-year low of 3.5% and the proportion of Americans either working or looking for work was higher than it is now.