Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said yesterday, “inflation is just much too high, and so we need to continue on the path that we’ve been indicating — at least that. And I’m hopeful that that will be enough.”

“Continued increases in the funds rate along the lines of our September SEP (Summary of Economic Projections) could lead to a economic outlook where we’re going to see below-trend growth — we’ll be challenged in that regard — we’ll see the unemployment rate go up, but I think that it won’t take off,” Evans said.

“I think if we have to increase the path of the funds rate much more, though, it really does begin to weigh on the economy. I worry that it’s sort of a nonlinear kind of event.”

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said yesterday that Fed’s goal is to front-load aggressive rate hikes to move to “some meaningfully restrictive level” that would push inflation down.

For November meeting, Bullard said the results “has been more or less priced in to markets” for a 75 basis-point hike, even though he’d prefer to decide at the meting. As for December, didn’t want to “prejudge”.

Then, in 2023, “I think we’ll be closer to the point where we can run what I would call ordinary monetary policy,” he said. “Now you’re at the right level of the policy rate, you’re putting downward pressure on inflation, but you can adjust as the data come in in 2023.”

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said yesterday that while headline inflation may have peaked, there is no evidence that core inflation has stopped climbing. So, “I can’t see how I would recommend pausing interest rate increases,” he added.

“My best guess right now is yes, do I think inflation is going to level out over the next few months, the services, the core inflation, and then that would position us some time next year to potentially pause,” he added.

“I’ve seen very little evidence in my region that the labor market is softening,” Kashkari said. “The No. 1 issue I hear from businesses small and large is that they’re struggling to find workers, how they’re having to pay more wages to keep their employees and to attract employees.”

Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said yesterday, “I’ve said publicly that I could easily see us getting into the mid-4%s early next year.”

“But if we don’t see progress in underlying inflation or core inflation, I don’t see why I would advocate stopping at 4.5%, or 4.75% or something like that,” he added. “We need to see actual progress in core inflation and services inflation and we are not seeing it yet.”

“That number that I offered is predicated on a flattening out of that underlying inflation,” Kashkari said. “If that doesn’t happen, then I don’t see how we can stop.”