Fed's Bostic: Little evidence to suggest that inflation is accelerating materially beyond 2%

Below are key quotes from the speech delivered by Raphael Bostic, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, at Mississippi Council on Economic Education.

• The economy is performing quite well.
• The unemployment rate is low relative to historical standards and has been at or below 4 percent since the spring.
  • This suggests we are at, or at least very close to, full employment.
• The recent economic data suggest that output growth is likely to continue at an above-trend pace in the current quarter. 
• One particularly bright spot has been consumer spending, which rebounded sharply in the second quarter, and looks similarly strong currently.
• Underlying measures of inflation such as the core personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price index and the Dallas Fed's trimmed-mean price index both hit 2 percent in July.
  • There is little evidence to suggest that inflation is accelerating materially beyond this.
• When the economy is doing well and standing on its own, as it is now, I think monetary policy ought to be moving toward a neutral stance.
  • For me, this means a gradual increase in nominal interest rates over the next handful of quarters.