Federal Reserve Bank of New York President John Williams said a half-percentage-point increase in interest rates is an option if warranted by the data, joining other officials in putting such a move on the table.
“If it’s appropriate to raise interest rates by 50 basis points at a meeting, then I would think that we should do that. If it’s appropriate to do 25, then we should do that,” Williams said Friday during a virtual central banking panel moderated by Bloomberg’s Francine Lacqua. “I don’t see any reason not to do one or the other, it’s just we need to make the right decisions based on what we’re seeing in the economy.”
Williams’s comments come after Fed officials raised rates by a quarter point last week for the first time since 2018 and projected six more such hikes this year to reach 1.9%.
