Federal Reserve’s Barkin says ‘job’s not done’ on bringing inflation down
US ECONOMIC data points to an economy that’s expanding while price growth is slowing, but the progress isn’t sufficient for the Federal Reserve to declare victory on inflation, Richmond Fed President Thomas Barkin said.
“The economy is still growing — unemployment is still 3.9 per cent and as you showed a little bit ago, inflation does seem to be settling. So all that’s good,” Barkin said in an interview with Fox Business on Monday. “But the job’s not done, and so you have to keep on until you get the job done, and we’ll see where we where we land.”
US central bankers held the benchmark policy rate steady for a second time earlier this month to gather more information on the economy before their final meeting of the year on Dec 12-13.
Inflation is cooling but is still too high with the consumer price index, minus food and energy, rising 4 per cent in October from a year earlier. While the Fed targets a different measure of price growth, the goal is 2 per cent.
Barkin, who will be a voting member of the Federal Open Market Committee in 2024, said earlier this month that some economic slowing will be required to bring inflation down further.
Last week, he said he’s not convinced inflation is on a clear path toward the central bank’s 2 per cent target despite “real progress” curbing price pressures in recent months.
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“What I’m hearing is a normalizing economy and a good way to look at it is year-over-year consumer-spending growth, year-over-year retail sales,” Barkin said. “Those numbers look much more like trend numbers than they do like the frothy numbers.”
On Monday, the Richmond Fed chief reiterated that his focus is on returning inflation to the central bank’s goal.
“I see inflation being stubborn, and that makes the case for me for being higher for longer.”
SEE ALSO
The Fed will release minutes from the Oct 31 to Nov 1 FOMC meeting on Tuesday.
Officials held the benchmark lending rate steady in a range of 5.25 per cent and 5.5 per cent, but economic reports leading into the meeting showed broad-based strength. BLOOMBERG
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