President Joe Biden will meet with U.S. Federal Reserve Board Chairman Jerome Powell at the White House on Tuesday to discuss the state of the American and global economy, the White House said in a statement issued late Sunday.

The White House said the two will discuss inflation in the U.S., now at its highest rate in 40 years.

This will be the first time that Biden has met with Powell since nominating him to a second term last November.

Commerce Department data released Friday showed a key gauge the Federal Reserve focuses on, personal consumption expenditures (PCE), rose 6.3% in April from a year earlier, more than three times the Fed's inflation target of 2%.

The more closely followed inflation gauge, the consumer price index (CPI), ticked down to 8.3% in April from 8.5% the month earlier — but is still at its highest rate since 1981.

On Monday, May 30, the average price of gas in the United States hit a new record of $4.619 per gallon, according to the Automobile Association of America.

Fed officials have raised interest rates a total of 0.75 percentage points in the past two months, with 0.50 basis points of the increase earlier this month, in an effort to cool down inflation. The Federal Reserve is set to begin to shrink its $9 trillion balance sheet of bonds and mortgage-backed securities in June.

Economists are concerned that if the Fed acts too aggressively to tamp inflation down, it could result in a recession.

However, the Federal Reserve may take stock of its hikes and their effects on the economy as they are made, and that could result in less hawkish action by the U.S. central bank, Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said last Monday.

It "might make sense" for the Federal Reserve to pause further interest rate hikes following expected half-point rate increases over the next two months as the central bank assesses the impact on inflation and the economy, Bostic said.

In addition, some institutional investors think worsening economic data may force central banks to take a less aggressive rate-rise stance, and to lower their rate targets. This is a growing consensus among money market fund managers, Reuters reported Friday.