WASHINGTON — Several Federal Reserve policymakers cautioned Thursday versus cutting U.S. interest rates too quickly or by too much in the wake of current information proving inflation remained suddenly high in January.
Their remarks echoed the minutes from the Fed’s last conference in January, launched Wednesday. The minutes revealed that most main bank authorities were worried about the danger that moving too quick to cut rates might permit inflation to increase onceagain after it has decreased considerably in the past year. Only “a couple” of policymakers concerned about a various threat: that keeping rates too high for too long might sluggish the economy and possibly trigger a economicdownturn.
Christopher Waller, a member of the Fed’s prominent board of guvs, entitled a composed copy of remarks he provided Thursday, “What’s the rush?”
“We requirement to confirm that the development on inflation we saw in the last half of 2023 will continue and this implies there is no rush to start cutting interest rates,” Waller stated.
Inflation hasactually fallen from a peak of 7.1% in 2022, according to the Fed’s chosen step, to simply 2.6% for all of2023 In the 2nd half of last year, costs grew simply 2% at an yearly rate, matching the Fed’s target.
Still, customer rates omitting the unstable food and energy classifications increased from December to January by the most in 8 months, an suddenly fast boost. Compared with a year earlier, they were up 3.9%, the verysame as the previous month.