By Lindsay Dunsmuir
(Reuters) -The Federal Reserve will probably have to raise interest rates to at least 5.4% in order to tame high inflation with January job gains showing policy actions so for have done little to dent the labor market, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari said on Tuesday.
“I think it surprised all of us,” Kashkari said in an interview with broadcaster CNBC, referring to a blowout January jobs report in which more than half a million employment gains were reported by the U.S. government. “It tells me that so far, we’re not seeing much of an imprint…on the labor market…it’s pretty muted so far, so I haven’t seen anything yet to lower my rate path.”
Kashkari, one of the most aggressive policymakers at the Fed in his assessment of how high interest rates need to go, had said a month ago that he forecast the policy rate should pause at 5.4%.
Fed Chair Jerome Powell is due to speak later on Tuesday at 1240 EST (1740 GMT).
Last week the U.S. central bank increased its benchmark overnight lending rate by a quarter-of-a-percentage-point to 4.5%-4.75%. Powell reiterated expectations that the Fed was eyeing a pause in the 5%-to-5.25% range as sufficiently restrictive in its fight against high inflation.
January’s jobs report, however, upended investor expectations after the U.S. economy added far more jobs than expected and the unemployment rate fell to 3.4%, the lowest reading since 1969.
On Monday, Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said the central bank may need to lift borrowing costs higher than previously anticipated given the unexpectedly strong job gains and noted that while a half-a-percentage-point rate hike was not his base case, it could be considered.
(Reporting by Lindsay Dunsmuir; Editing by Andrew Heavens and Chizu Nomiyama)
