Fed’s Collins Signals Current Rates ‘Appropriate for Now’ (1)

Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Susan Collins signaled that holding interest-rates steady would be “appropriate for now” as inflation is likely to stay elevated for some time.

The labor market, she added, appeared to be cooling, but not rapidly.

“If I were seeing evidence that the labor market were notably deteriorating, I would take that very seriously and that certainly could justify near-term additional easing,” Collins said in an interview with Bloomberg’s Odd Lots podcast on the sidelines of the Boston Fed’s annual economic conference. “We haven’t seen a significant unemployment change.”

Instead, she said the Fed’s current policy ...