San Francisco Fed President Mary Daly pushed back against the idea of a 50bps rate cut at the September FOMC meeting, a move strongly advocated earlier this week by Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent. In a Wall Street Journal interview, Daly said such a large cut would send an “urgency signal” that doesn’t match her view of the economy’s strength.
“I’m worried it would send an urgency signal that I don’t feel about the strength of the labor market,” she noted.
Daly stressed there’s no need to “catch up,” pointing to a still-solid job market. That’s in contrast to Bessent’s view that if the Fed had seen recent job market data sooner, it could have cut in June and July and now “needs to catch up.”
