Philadelphia Fed Bank President Patrick Harker expressed his support for raising interest rates above 5% and then assessing the impact on inflation. He noted yesterday, “I’m in the camp of getting up above 5 and then sitting there for a while.”
Harker acknowledged that recent inflation readings showed a slow disinflation process, which he described as “disappointing.” Despite this, he pointed out promising signs that Fed’s rate hikes are working.
He stated, “If we see inflation not budging, then I think we’ll have to take more action. But at this point, I don’t see why we would just continue to go up, up, up and then go, whoops! And then go down, down, down very quickly. Let’s sit there.”
Harker also emphasized the commitment to bringing inflation back down to the 2% target and highlighted that the full impact of monetary policy actions could take up to 18 months to work through the economy. He said, “We will continue to look closely at available data to determine what, if any, additional actions we may need to take.”
