After helping build a floor under the economy during the pandemic only to put a squeeze on it as inflation soared, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell on Monday faced a public he’d warned would go through painful times as the central bank hiked interest rates.

On a day tour of York, Pennsylvania, once a thriving manufacturing town about 100 miles west of Philadelphia that local officials tout as undergoing a “fledgling renaissance,” Powell got an earful from residents and community and business leaders fretful about inflation and eager for greater certainty about what lies ahead…