(Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco President Mary Daly said she is “very comfortable” with policymakers’ median projection of two interest-rate cuts next year, emphasizing the central bank can turn to a slower approach.
“My projection is that it will take many fewer rate cuts next year than we thought but I’ll watch the economy and see if that works out,” Daly said Friday in an interview on Bloomberg Television.
Earlier this week Fed officials signaled they’d likely significantly slow the pace of interest-rate cuts next year after lowering borrowing costs three consecutive times. The latest move, which Daly called a close call, brought the federal funds rate to a range of 4.25% to 4.5%.
“Now I feel we’ve got that recalibration phase behind us, and we’re in the next phase,” she said. “The next phase is really looking at the incoming information. We can return to a more typical pattern of gradualism for the Fed.”
Policymakers estimate they may only lower rates twice in 2025 amid slowing progress on cooling inflation to their 2% goal and still-solid hiring in the labor market. Daly pointed to recent data, rather than the proposed policies of President-elect Donald Trump, as the basis for her new economic projections.
Plans put forward by the incoming Trump administration may stoke inflation, some economists say, further complicating the picture. Chair Jerome Powell, speaking in a post-meeting press conference Wednesday, said that some of his colleagues had started to factor potential fiscal policy changes into their forecasts.
When asked about tariffs, Daly said the economy — while solid — is in a different position than it was during the last round of tariff discussions. At that time, she said, inflation was below the central bank’s goal.
“We already have inflation above 2% and so we have to work hard to get inflation down to 2% and that is an economy that’s just a little more vulnerable than it would be if we had inflation at 2%,” Daly said.
--With assistance from Jonathan Ferro, Lisa Abramowicz and Michael McKee.
(Adds additional comments from Daly beginning in seventh paragraph.)