(Reuters) -Atlanta Federal Reserve Bank President Raphael Bostic, until recently among the central bank’s most dovish policymakers, on Friday said he “fully” supports another three quarters of a percentage point interest rate rise at the Fed’s next policy meeting later this month.
“We can move by 75 basis points at the next meeting and not see a lot of protracted damage to the economy,” Bostic said in an interview with CNBC.
Bostic said a report out earlier Friday showing U.S. job growth increased more than expected and the unemployment rate remained at 3.6% in June “reaffirms that the economy is strong and there is still a lot of momentum in the labor market and that is a good thing.”
Still, he said, the data shows some early signs of a slowing economy. “They are really just minor signs and …what I’m going to be looking for over the next several months is evidence that that slowing is becoming much more sustained, and much more significant across the board,” he said.
(Reporting by Ann Saphir and Lindsay Dunsmuir; editing by Chizu Nomiyama)