The Federal Reserve's decision Wednesday to hike interest rates by 75 basis points—the largest increase since 1994—heightened fears among economists that the central bank's attempt to tame inflation risks plunging the U.S. economy into recession and inflicting more pain on vulnerable workers.

The Fed's move came on the heels of worse-than-expected federal data showing that inflation jumped 8.6% in May compared to a year earlier, prompting central bank officials to pursue more aggressive federal-funds rate increases, the Fed's blunt tool to rein in consumer prices.

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday instituted the largest interest rate hike in 28 years as it escalates its fight against the worst inflation in four decades and fends off criticism that it moved too slowly in easing pandemic-era stimulus measures, driving experts to increasingly question whether the economy is headed toward a recession.

In 1997, Former Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, while still an academic, wrote a famous historical study for the Brookings Institution: “Systematic Monetary Policy and the Effects of Oil Price Shocks” with Mark Gertler and Mark Watson.

It began by documenting that “essentially all the U.S. recessions of the past thirty years have been preceded by both oil price increases and a tightening of monetary policy.” So here we are again tightening monetary policy at a time of unaffordable oil price increases.