(Bloomberg) — Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland President Loretta Mester said monetary policy is in a good place, adding that the central bank shouldn’t be in a hurry to cut interest rates.
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Mester said she still expects inflation will fall further but that she wants to see more data to gain confidence it’s moving back toward the Fed’s 2% target. A strong economy and robust labor market are giving the Fed room to be patient with policy, she said.
“I still am expecting inflation to come down but I do think that we need to be watching and gathering more information before we take an action,” Mester said Wednesday at an event in Chagrin Falls, Ohio.
Earlier this month, Mester said she saw three rate cuts as likely appropriate this year but indicated at the time it was a “close call.” Mester, who currently votes on monetary policy, will step down at the end of June.
Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said at a separate event in Washington that progress on inflation may have stalled and questioned the degree to which monetary policy is restraining the economy.
There “is a lot of financial market activity and a lot of continued growth that we wouldn’t have expected if policy was sufficiently tight,” Bowman said Wednesday. “I think it is restrictive. I think time will tell whether it is sufficiently restrictive.”
Fed officials have said they’re not in a rush to start cutting rates, which they’ve held in a range of 5.25% to 5.5% since July. Higher-than-expected inflation data in the first three months of this year has increased concern that it may take longer than previously thought to return to the Fed’s 2% target.
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That data also led to a shift in tone by Chair Jerome Powell earlier this week. He said Tuesday that it’s appropriate to give policy further time to work, adding the Fed can keep rates steady for “as long as needed” should price pressures persist.
Bowman said there are some bright spots on the inflation front, such as a decline in food costs in many areas. But prices are still rising for some services, and housing and insurance continues to be “much more expensive than in the past.”
(Updates with comments from Bowman at separate event.)
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