Minneapolis Federal Reserve President Neel Kashkari said Wednesday he anticipates the Fed will cut interest rates two or three times in 2024.
“Sitting here today, I would say, two or three cuts would seem to be appropriate for me right now,” he told CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” “But again, I don’t want to prejudge things, but that’s, that’s my gut, based on the data we have so far.”
Kashkari, who is not a voting member of the Fed panel that makes decisions on monetary policy, noted the labor market could impact the number and speed of rate cuts this year.
“If the labor market continues to be quite strong, that would give me confidence to say, ‘Well we can dial things back quite slowly from here,’” he said. “If we saw a material slowdown in the labor market, then that would say, ‘Hey, maybe we need to start cutting rates a little more quickly.’”
Kashkari’s prediction of two or three rate cuts largely falls in line with previous projections from Fed officials in December. All but three officials said at the time that they anticipated at least two cuts in 2024, while the largest share anticipated three.