Fed’s Mester backs 50 bps rate hikes, sees no sustained downturn
2022.05.10 17:21
FILE PHOTO: Cleveland Fed President Loretta Mester takes part in a panel convened to speak about the health of the U.S. economy in New York November 18, 2015. REUTERS/Lucas Jackson
(Reuters) – Cleveland Federal Reserve Bank President Loretta Mester on Tuesday said she backs half-point interest rate increases at the next couple Fed meetings and expects they’ll need to go above 2.5% to bring high inflation down.
“It may very well be that the unemployment rate will have to move up a little bit, we may get another quarter of negative or slow growth, but that’s going to have to happen if we want to get inflation down,” Mester told Yahoo Finance. “I don’t think what are planning to to with monetary policy, at least in my base case, is going to push the economy into a downturn that’s sort of a sustained downturn.”
