Arabic version: بولسون تشير إلى مزيد من الزيادات المحدودة في أسعار الفائدة من الاحتياطي الفيدرالي

According to Cnbc, Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Anna Paulson said Thursday that further interest-rate increases may be needed to return inflation to the central bank’s 2% target. Her comments followed the Federal Open Market Committee’s quarter-percentage-point increase, which brought the federal funds target range to 3.75% to 4%.

Paulson said the latest move brought policy closer to the level she believes is needed to lower inflation at a pace that balances price pressures against risks to the labor market. If conditions develop as she expects, “some modest further tightening may be warranted,” she said in prepared remarks for a fintech conference in her home district.

While price pressures moderated during the summer, Paulson said underlying inflation remains about 2.5% to 3%, well above the Fed’s target. She said the gap has shown little sign of closing and noted that inflation has remained elevated beyond the effects of oil supply shocks linked to the Iran war and tariffs. “The best I can say about underlying inflation this year is that it hasn’t gotten worse,” she said.

Paulson described economic output as solid and said the labor market was holding steady. Markets have increased expectations for additional tightening: traders were pricing in a 64% chance of another FOMC increase in October and expected another move in January, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch tool. Fed funds futures implied a 4.8% rate by the end of 2027, suggesting expectations for as many as four further quarter-point increases. New York Fed President John Williams also said Thursday that another increase before year-end was “reasonable.”