MNI BRIEF: Fed's Goolsbee Says Fall FOMC Meetings Are 'Live'

The fall FOMC meetings are "live" as Federal Reserve officials debate whether inflation is headed down or if tariff effects will keep price pressures persistently high, Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee said Wednesday.  

"As we go into the fall, these are going to be some live meetings," he told the Greater Springfield Chamber of Commerce in Springfield, Ill. "The hardest thing that a central bank ever has to do is try to get the timing right when there are moments of transition." 

The key question facing the FOMC, he said, is whether growth "still on the golden path -- the economy's going fine, inflation is going to come back down, or are we getting into something where the costs are going to start rising again?"  

The latest CPI report showed overall inflation inching higher and services prices, which are not clearly tied to the tariffs, rising. "If you start to get multiple months where the components suggest that the impact of tariff inflation is not staying in its lane, then that would be more of a concern." 

The labor market is "pretty strong, pretty solid," having moved to a "traditional, sustainable, full-employment type model," he added. With a decline in population growth, it's better to focus on ratios like the unemployment rate, hiring rate, layoff rate, job openings rates as a share of jobs, he said. "They're less susceptible to change popular population changing that, and if you look at those so far, they still are showing pretty steady." (See: MNI INTERVIEW: Fed September Cut Not Assured - Rosengren)