Fed Governor Adriana Kugler said Wednesday that she “strongly” supported the decision to cut interest rates by 50 basis points, and that she will support additional rate cuts if progress on inflation continues.
“While future actions by the FOMC will depend on data we receive on inflation, employment, and economic activity, if conditions continue to evolve in the direction traveled thus far, then additional cuts will be appropriate,” Kugler said in a speech at the Harvard Kennedy School.
The Fed lowered rates by a half percentage point last week to a new range of 4.75% to 5%, marking the first cut in more than four years. Officials also laid out a path for two more 25 basis point rate cuts at the remaining two policy meetings of the year.
Kugler, like many of her colleagues, cited cooling in the job market along with falling inflation for the Fed’s new rate-cutting cycle.
If the next reading of the Personal Consumption Expenditures Index — the Fed’s preferred inflation measure — comes in line with Kluger’s estimate of 2.7%, that would be consistent with ongoing progress toward the Fed’s 2% inflation goal, she added. That reading is due out Friday.
“The labor market remains resilient, but the FOMC now needs to balance its focus so we can continue making progress on disinflation while avoiding unnecessary pain and weakness in the economy as disinflation continues in the right trajectory,” she said.
Kugler joins other members of the Fed — including Fed Governor Chris Waller, Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic and Minneapolis Fed president Neel Kashkari — who have publicly announced their support for the half point cut announced last week.
Not everyone was on board with the size of the first move.
One lone dissenter, Fed Governor Michelle Bowman, has said she would have preferred to cut by a smaller quarter point because she feels core inflation is still too high and didn’t want to send the signal that the Fed sees economic weakness by doing a jumbo cut.
“I was concerned that reducing the target range for the federal funds rate by half percentage point could be interpreted as a signal that the committee sees some fragility or greater downside risks to the economy,” Bowman said Tuesday.
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