Recently, a new term has been recurring in statements from the top officials of the Federal Reserve: "uncertainty."

The trend began with Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who emphasized the word 22 times in his remarks to reporters on March 19 after the central bank decided to maintain interest rates.

Powell described the US economic outlook as having "remarkably high" uncertainty.

Subsequently, his colleagues echoed similar sentiments. New York Fed president John Williams used the term 12 times in a speech titled "Certain Uncertainty."

More recently, Fed governor Adriana Kugler mentioned a "heightened level of uncertainty," while St. Louis Fed president Alberto Musalem expressed concerns about "considerable uncertainty" regarding the impact of President Trump's tariffs on inflation.

This prevalent uncertainty among central bank policymakers was evident in the Fed's quarterly Summary of Economic Projections, which was released last Wednesday. Despite keeping the prediction for two rate cuts this year, officials revised their inflation and economic growth outlooks due to uncertainties surrounding Trump's tariff plans.

Fed officials admitted the difficulty in predicting economic developments accurately amid such uncertainty. Williams acknowledged the presence of "certain uncertainty in monetary policy."

Furthermore, nearly all Fed officials indicated that risks to unemployment forecasts were tilted upwards and risks to inflation forecasts were skewed downwards, implying that inflation may rise while employment may decline.

The language of uncertainty is also being adopted in the business realm, with companies like FedEx citing it in warnings about lower profit and revenue projections due to ongoing weakness in the US industrial economy.