Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said Wednesday that he thinks higher interest rates are needed now to bring down inflation and avoid more drastic increases later.
In a CNBC interview, the central bank official called for a gradual approach that could start in September, though he did not commit to a timetable.
Kashkari was one of three dissenters at last week’s Federal Open Market Committee who wanted a quarter percentage point rate hike. However, the other nine voters disagreed, voting to hold the benchmark funds rate in a range between 3.5%-3.75%.
“Corporate earnings are through the roof. They’re doing great. The consumer is hanging in there. The labor market is hanging in there. I look at this constellation and I say, what evidence do I have that monetary policy is particularly restrictive right now?” he told CNBS’s Andrew Ross Sorkin in a live interview from the Aspen Ideas Festival in Colorado.
“So I argued now is the time to start slowly moving up as we get more data in,” he said.
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