Fed’s Goolsbee says pace of rate cuts may need to slow

By Ann Saphir

(Reuters) – Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee on Thursday reiterated his support for further interest rate cuts and his openness to doing them more slowly, remarks that underscore the U.S. central bank’s debate that it’s not about whether, but over how fast and how far, borrowing costs should be lowered.

Some Fed policymakers worry that progress lowering inflation may have stalled and call for a cautious approach, while others want to make sure the labor market doesn’t cool further, suggesting the need for continued rate cuts. And over all of those differences hangs the uncertainty of how potential tariffs and tax cuts and an immigration crackdown promised by President-elect Donald Trump will affect prices, jobs, and the economy more broadly.  

Fed policymakers will meet on Dec. 17-18 to resolve their differences, at least temporarily, with a decision to either cut the policy rate again or wait to do so until next year. Financial markets judge it to be a close call, with interest rate futures putting about a 55% probability on a quarter-percentage-point cut, and a 45% chance of no cut.

The Fed cut its policy rate by half a percentage point in September and by a quarter of a percentage point at its meeting earlier this month.

Goolsbee, in remarks to the Central Indiana Corporate Partnership, did not say whether he favored another rate cut next month, but he did stake out a longer-term view that appears to be shared by most Fed policymakers – that rates are not yet where they need to be.

The Chicago Fed president said inflation over the last year and a half has dropped and is on its way to the Fed’s 2% goal, labor markets have cooled and the economy is now close to stable, full employment.

It follows that interest rates should about a year from now be “a fair bit lower than where they are today,” he said. The Fed’s policy rate is currently set in the 4.50%-4.75% range.

Fed policymakers projected in September that at the end of next year the policy rate should be anywhere from 2.9% to 4.1%. Since then, stronger-than-expected inflation readings and big swings in monthly job market data may have shifted those views somewhat, with the central bank due to publish new forecasts at its meeting next month. 

Given the uncertainty and disagreement over how much lower rates ought to go, Goolsbee said “it may make sense to slow the pace of rate cuts as we get close.”