Below are key quotes from the speech delivered by Raphael Bostic, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, at Mississippi Council on Economic Education.
- The economy is performing quite well.
- The unemployment rate is low relative to historical standards and has been at or below 4 percent since the spring.
- This suggests we are at, or at least very close to, full employment.
- The recent economic data suggest that output growth is likely to continue at an above-trend pace in the current quarter.
- One particularly bright spot has been consumer spending, which rebounded sharply in the second quarter, and looks similarly strong currently.
- Underlying measures of inflation such as the core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index and the Dallas Fed’s trimmed-mean price index both hit 2 percent in July.
- There is little evidence to suggest that inflation is accelerating materially beyond this.
- When the economy is doing well and standing on its own, as it is now, I think monetary policy ought to be moving toward a neutral stance.
- For me, this means a gradual increase in nominal interest rates over the next handful of quarters.
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