Fed’s Goolsbee Sees Three Rate Cuts This Year as Inflation Cools
Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee said he is among policymakers anticipating three interest-rate cuts this year.
(Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee said he is among policymakers anticipating three interest-rate cuts this year.
Goolsbee, speaking Monday in an interview on Yahoo! Finance, said his view was in line with the median estimate in projections released following the Fed’s March 19-20 meeting. Ten officials saw at least three cuts this year, while nine others projected two or fewer.
“I was at the median for this one,” Goolsbee said, while also declining to speculate on when the Fed could start cutting rates. “We’re in this murky period where we’ve got to strike a balance of the dual mandate.”
Fed officials left rates unchanged for a fifth straight meeting last week and said they are watching inflation closely to see whether it’s on a sustainable path to the Fed’s 2% target.
Consumer prices rose at a faster-than-expected pace in January and February. Goolsbee said the broader picture likely hasn’t fundamentally changed, pointing to rapid disinflation in the second half of 2023.
“It seems hard for me to view that the seven months previous to the start of this year were just random,” Goolsbee said.
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