Boston Fed President Eric Rosengren said the US had over 900k jobs growth for two months in a row and unemployment rate dropped by half a percent to 5.4%. He added, “if we get another strong labor market report, I think that I would be supportive of announcing in September that we are ready to start the taper program.”
“I think it’s appropriate to start in the fall. That would be October or November,” Rosengren told CNBC. “I certainly wouldn’t want to wait any later than December. My preference would be probably for sooner rather than later.” He also said that “there’s no reason to drag it out as long as the economy continues to progress as we expect.”
On the other hand, he’d prefer to see more progress before moving on to raising interest rate. “The criteria for starting to raise rates is that we see outcomes that are consistent with sustainable inflation at a little bit above 2%,” he reiterated Fed’s general position.
