what's the difference between now and the 80's

In the '80's wages tracked inflation. This is why he's saying that prices will remain high. They're only high if our wages remain low.

Powell stated this as his goal a year ago:

“By moderating demand, we could see vacancies come down, and as a result—and they could come down fairly significantly and I think put supply and demand at least closer together than they are, and that that would give us a chance to have lower—to get inflation—to get wages down and then get inflation down without having to slow the economy and have a recession and have unemployment rise materially. So there’s a path to that,” he said.