In this Dec. 1, 2020, file photo, Chairman of the Federal Reserve Jerome Powell speaks during a Senate Banking Committee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington. The U.S. economy has been showing unexpected strength in recent weeks, with barometers of hiring, spending and manufacturing all surging.

WASHINGTON — With employers hiring, consumers spending and companies raising some prices, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell is embarking on a high-stakes gamble.

Powell’s bet is that the Fed can keep rates ultra-low even as the U.S. economic recovery kicks into high gear — and that it won’t have to quickly raise rates to stop runaway inflation.

It’s just the kind of gamble that in the past led some of Powell’s predecessors to miscalculate and inadvertently derail the economy.

Powell and the rest of the Fed’s policymaking committee plan to keep rates near zero until nearly everyone who wants a job has one, even after inflation has crept above their 2% annual target level. Faster growth raises the risk that the Fed will eventually have to respond quickly and aggressively to a sudden acceleration of prices — and potentially cause a slump, even another recession.

Getting the timing right on interest rate policy is a tricky task that has bedeviled Fed chairs for decades. Arthur Burns, who led the central bank in the 1970s, is widely blamed for allowing inflation to get out of hand after yielding to pressure from President Richard Nixon to forgo further rate hikes.