WASHINGTON (AP) — Jeffrey Lacker, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, says the economic recovery needs to be firmly rooted before the central bank reverses course and begins to raise interest rates.
The comments are especially interesting because Lacker has a reputation for being an inflation “hawk.” Hawks worry more about super-low borrowing costs and other special support stoking inflation, while “doves” worry more about rising unemployment.
Lacker says he will be “looking for the time at which economic growth is strong enough and well-enough established” as a precursor to boosting the Fed’s key bank lending rate, now at a record low near zero.