Federal Reserve Governor Michelle Bowman on Saturday reiterated her view that inflation remains too high despite “considerable” progress in reducing it, and that the US central bank will likely have to tighten monetary policy further.
“I hope it is appropriate for the Federal Reserve to raise rates further and keep them at a restrictive level for some time to return inflation to our 2% goal in a timely manner,” Bowman told the Connecticut Bankers Association.
“I remain willing to support raising the federal funds rate at a future meeting if new data indicate that inflation progress has stalled or is too slow to bring inflation to 2% in a timely manner,” she noted.
The comments were largely identical to those Bowman made on Monday about the economic and political outlook.
On Friday, the U.S. Department of Labor reported that employers created nearly twice as many jobs as expected in September.
Bowman said the latest report reflects “solid” job growth.
“The frequency and scope of recent data revisions complicate the task of projecting how the economy will evolve,” Bowman said.
(With information from Reuters)