With inflation remaining low, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said Tuesday, the data do not support any more rate hikes.
“Right now, I’m not seeing evidence of pressures that would warrant raising interest rates further,” Kashkari told the Rochester Area Chamber of Commerce in a talk that was livestreamed. He said he looks at labor market, wage and inflation data in making his determination.
But, he said when he voted in 2017, he voted against the three rate hikes passed by the Federal Open Market Committee because he still sees labor market slack. “We don’t know how many workers are out there that are not being counted.” But, he added, “If inflation is low, there’s no need to tap the brakes prematurely and no need to snuff the economy before it really heats up.”
The Summary of Economic Projections, he said, implies two rate hikes this year, but Kashkari said, “Will we actually raise interest rates two times? I don’t know. It’s going to depend on the data. Could it be more? Could it be less? We’ll have to see.”
When asked about the stock market, he said, “We don’t target the stock market directly. I don’t think our jobs are to protect investors from losses. But if there’s information contained in the markets we want to at least acknowledge that information and make sense of it.”
