WASHINGTON (Reuters) – The Federal Reserve may still need to raise its benchmark interest rate by another half-point this year, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard said, suggesting that any decision to pause on any increase at the upcoming June meeting won’t mark a full stop to the Fed’s tightening cycle.
“The risk with inflation is that it does not turn around and go back to a low level,” Bullard said in remarks to the American Gas Association. “As long as the labor market is so good it is a great time to get this problem behind us and not replay the 1970s.”
(Reporting by Howard Schneider; Editing by Mark Porter)