JACKSON, Miss. (AP) — Atlanta Federal Reserve President Dennis Lockhart still sees no danger of inflation and says the current unemployment rate is “still some distance” from full employment, a sign he’s not seeking an increase in interest rates until mid-2016 or later.
Lockhart says economic measures agree that significant slack remains in the labor market and that If anything, inflation remains too low.
Speaking Thursday to the Mississippi Council on Economic Education, Lockhart said he’s increasingly confident that growth will continue at 3 percent a year for the rest of 2014, although consumer spending remains weak.
He says increasing stock prices do not pose a systemic risk.
Lockhart says that timing of tighter monetary policy and higher interest rates is not “foreordained” and remains dependent on economic performance.
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