Federal Reserve officials on Friday ended their public comment period ahead of the U.S. central bank's Sept. 20-21 policy meeting with strong calls for another oversized interest rate increase to battle high inflation.
"Based on what I know today, I support a significant increase at our next meeting ... to get the policy rate to a setting that is clearly restricting demand," Fed Governor Christopher Waller told the Institute for Advanced Studies in Austria.
Fed policymakers will receive a final round of monthly inflation data on Tuesday ahead of their meeting. But officials this week downplayed the importance of any single data point, and emphasized their determination to keep raising rates until there is a sustained drop in inflation, which has been running at 40-year highs.
"I believe the policy decision at our next meeting will be straightforward ... Right now, there is no tradeoff between the Fed's employment and inflation objectives, so we will continue to aggressively fight inflation," Waller said. "Inflation is widespread, driven by strong demand that has only begun to moderate, by an ongoing lag in labor force participation, and by supply chain problems that may be improving in some areas but are still considerable.
St. Louis Fed President James Bullard, in comments to Bloomberg, reiterated his call for a hike of 75 basis points at the meeting, saying recent data showing continued strong job growth had him "leaning more strongly" towards the larger rise in borrowing costs.
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