Cleveland Fed President Pushes Back on Rate Cut Hopes
Cleveland Federal Reserve President and CEO Beth Hammack says inflation remains the central bank’s biggest challenge, signaling she isn’t convinced the Fed should lower rates at its upcoming September meeting.
Speaking with Yahoo Finance, Hammack stressed that while the labor market is showing signs of cooling, unemployment at 4.2% remains consistent with maximum employment.
Inflation, meanwhile, “has been trending upwards over the past year” and continues to sit above the Fed’s target.
No Case for Cuts Yet
“I would only want to move into an accommodative stance if the economy was materially weakening, which I’m not seeing evidence of right now,” Hammack said.
She emphasized the need to keep monetary policy “modestly restrictive” until inflation comes back under control.
Her comments contrast with market expectations. The CME FedWatch Tool currently shows a 75.5% chance of a 25 basis point cut in September, reflecting investor confidence that slowing job growth will prompt the Fed to act.
Balancing Risks
Hammack acknowledged that further economic data between now and the next Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting could shift the outlook.
But for now, she sees little justification for easing, arguing that the greater risk lies in letting inflation remain elevated rather than tightening too long.
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Alex is Editor-in-Chief of Coindoo and co-founder of Millennial Media Group, with nearly a decade of experience covering financial markets - crypto first, then everything else. It started in 2016 with Bitcoin. Like most people at the time, he didn't fully understand it - so he kept digging. Blockchain, tokenomics, the projects, the cycles. That curiosity never stopped, and eventually pulled him into traditional markets too: equities, commodities, macro. Not because he left crypto behind, but because you can't properly understand one without the other. What drives him is straightforward: he wants to know why something is happening, not just that it's happening. Most market coverage stops at the headline - price up, price down, here's a chart. Alex finds that kind of reporting actively unhelpful. If you walk away from an article without understanding the mechanism behind the move, what did you actually learn? He holds a degree in Tourism from New Bulgarian University - not the most obvious path into financial markets, but markets have a way of pulling in people who are simply too curious to stay out. He has authored over 200 in-depth analyses and more than 10,000 articles across crypto and traditional finance. He still thinks every day in markets teaches him something new. That's probably why he hasn't stopped.
