Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said he is keeping an “open mind” on the timing of rate hike and “I have not made any decisions about where my stance is on that.”

“We are getting these mixed signals out of the economy,” he added, referring to rising wages while jobs were still 5 to 7 million short of pre-pandemic levels. “I’m optimistic, in the next three, six, nine months we will get a lot more information,” he said.

He also said, “if the labor force does not return, then that’s going to give me more concern that the high inflation readings that we’ve been seeing may be sustained, because that means that hey, we are already at or maybe we are close to our economy’s potential.”

San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly urged patience to wait-and-see before acting on interest rates. She warned that if Fed hikes too soon, it will do very little on inflation, but “absolutely” reduce the pace of job growth. “That’s too much risk to take when we don’t have any indication that these are today persistent trends,” she said.

“I’m looking at the summer of 2022 is when we should – knock on wood, no more variants, no more delta surges – get some clarity,” she said.

On prices, she said, “as we get through the pandemic, we’ll see prices moderate and we’ll be back to that situation in which we had for more than a decade of forces pushing inflation down, not pushing inflation up.”

Fed Chair Jerome Powell said defining maximum employment as a broad and inclusive goal recognizes that “a strong labor market delivers broad-reaching benefits and extends those benefits in particular to low- and moderate-income communities”.

“While monetary policy does not target any particular group of people, when we assess whether we are at maximum employment, we purposely look at a wide range of indicators, and we are attentive to disparities in the labor market, rather than just the headline numbers,” he added.

Full speech here.

Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said, “inflation will stay more elevated in 2022”, but “we have time to be patient”. In his own view, Fed will not need to raise interest rates until 2023.

Nevertheless, in a speech, he said there are signs that inflation pressures could build up more broadly. “These developments deserve careful monitoring and present a greater upside risk to my inflation outlook than I had thought last summer.”

Separately, Fed Governor Michelle Bowman said, “housing supply issues are unlikely to reverse materially in the short term, which suggests that we are likely to see higher inflation from housing for a while.”

Philadelphia Fed President Patrick Harker said yesterday “I don’t expect that the federal funds rate will rise before the tapering is complete.” But he added, “we are monitoring inflation very closely and are prepared to take action, should circumstances warrant it.”

Harker expected the economy to grow by around 5.5% this year and 4% next, provided that there is no further wave of COVID-19 infections. Then growth was slow to 2-3% in 2023.

St. Louis Fed President James Bullard told Fox Business network, that supply chain disruption is expected to extend through 2022. “if inflation is more persistent than we are saying right now, then I think we may have to take a little sooner action in order to keep inflation under control,” he added.

But he said, “we’ve done a lot to move the policy in a more hawkish direction.” And, “if we had to, we could end the taper somewhat sooner than June”.

He penciled in two rate hikes in 2022.

In a speech, Fed Chair Vice Clarida said the US is “a ways away from considering raising interest rates”. However, if outlook for inflation and unemployment realized over time, the “three necessary conditions for raising the target range for the federal funds rate will have been met by year-end 2022”.

Clarida also said his individual projections for GDP growth, the unemployment rate, inflation and the policy rate path were quite close the the September median projections. Real GDP would return to its prepandemic trend growth trajectory by Q4 this year, representing “one of the most rapid such recoveries in 50 years.” The 4.2 “employment gap” relative to the previous cycle peak will be eliminated by the end of 2022.

Realized PCE inflation so far this year was “much more than a ‘moderate’ overshoot” of the 2% target. But ” I would not consider a repeat performance next year a policy success”. Also, risks to inflation outlook are “to the upside”.

Full speech here.