Fed chair Jerome Powell has pivoted to warn of the dangers of weak inflation. //

The fear of higher inflation may feel like more of a risk, because it's more recent in consumers' memory. By contrast, the last deflationary period in the U.S. was in the 1930s.

But "deflation is more painful for the economy and for individuals than inflation," Nathan Sheets, a former Fed official and current economist at PGIM, tells Axios.

"When you're in a period of deflation, what it's doing is it's sucking down the power of prices. Wages are falling and prices are falling. A deflationary environment tends to transfer resources from debtors to creditors," says Sheets.