Chicago Fed President Charles Evans sounded more cautious than some of his FOMC colleagues in the topic of tapering. He acknowledged that the US is “making progress” and “well on our way” to substantial further progress. But, “I’d like to see a few more employment reports,” before making the decision.
“Everybody is wondering about September, November, December, January,” as possible dates to start scaling back asset purchases, Evans said. “I don’t think that one meeting on either side is going to have an important effect.”
“We should not preemptively end a strong improvement in the labor market because somebody is getting nervous about inflation,” he said. “I am going to be very regretful if we sort of claim victory on averaging 2% and then find ourselves in 2023 with about a 1.8% inflation rate … That would be a challenge for our long run framework.”
