Mary C. Daly, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said that the central bank shouldn’t act “out of fear.”
Federal Reserve officials predicted at their last meeting that they would make two more quarter-point rate cuts before the end of 2024 as inflation continued to slow and the job market cooled further.
But in the weeks since, labor data have come in stronger, opening a big question: What does it mean for the interest rate outlook if the job market does not slow from here?
One Fed official suggested on Tuesday that the central bank should keep lowering interest rates as expected even if the economy is chugging along, so long as inflation continues to cool. Policymakers, she suggested, should not try to slow the economy down if evidence suggests that price increases are coming under control.
“I’m very opposed to cutting off expansion out of fear,” Mary C. Daly, the president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, said during an interview on Tuesday morning, ahead of a speech she delivered at New York University.
She pointed out that back in 2019, in the year leading up to the pandemic, the job market was very strong but that it did not lead to rapid inflation. In that experience, low unemployment allowed for solid wage gains, and it pulled new people into the labor market.
“We should not kill off job growth and good growth as long as it doesn’t produce inflation,” she said. “If we could get 2019 again, I’d be all for it — why not?”
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Source: Economy - nytimes.com
