Yellen legacy-to-date sparkles on jobs but stumbles on inflation

Washington

ON the employment side of the Federal Reserve's twin objectives, chair Janet Yellen's track record so far has been a sparkling success. On the other, there's a problem with a stubborn, uncooperative indicator: inflation.

The Fed's preferred price measure has averaged 1.1 per cent since Ms Yellen took the US central bank's helm in February 2014 - a significant miss of the Fed's 2 per cent inflation target. It averaged 2.5 per cent during Alan Greenspan's chairmanship between 1987 and 2006, and 1.9 per cent during eight years under B…