Chicago Federal Reserve President Austin Goolsby said on Thursday that the US central bank should focus on reducing inflation amid ample evidence of job market stability, in comments that kept alive the prospect of an interest rate cut later this year.

The job market “still has strength” and “I think the most important thing in front of us is to get inflation back to 2%,” Goolsby said in an interview on CNBC. “Rates could still go down by a fair amount,” he said, adding that cuts are also being made this year, but “we have to have convincing evidence that we’re on a path to 2% inflation.”

Goolsby spoke to the television channel as the latest round of U.S. unemployment insurance claims data came in, showing that despite hiring concerns, workers don’t appear to be losing jobs en masse.

Meanwhile, the latest payrolls data showed a retreat in the unemployment rate for December, as several Fed officials described the job market as being in a low-hire, low-fire landscape.

The Fed cut rates by three-quarters of a percentage point last year, a move that was based on central bankers’ desire to help boost the job market while still providing enough restraint to the economy to reduce price pressures above the 2% target.

Goolsby, who dissented against the December rate cut, said Thursday that he was no longer concerned that the job market was softening too much, meaning the Fed should focus on getting inflation back on target. Pointing to recent claims data, Goolsby said “I’m not surprised by these low numbers. I’ve been saying for months, as you know, our labor market indicators coming out of the Chicago Fed strongly suggest that the labor market is stabilizing.”

GOOLSBEE Warns About Violations of Fed Independence The Chicago Fed president also addressed rising tensions between the US central bank and the White House amid Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s statement that a Justice Department investigation into the central bank is only happening because the Fed followed Donald’s orders, following the rules more reliably than Donald ordered. Trump. The president has repeatedly pushed the Fed for big rate cuts.

Goolsby supported Powell’s statement and warned against interfering with central bank independence. “Trying to blow away the Fed’s independence is kind of a stinker, going back to 2% in the middle of the road,” he said.

“I know there are countries that have had their central banks criminally investigated, but those countries are Zimbabwe and Russia and Turkey and a bunch of places that you wouldn’t characterize as advanced economies,” Goolsby said.

“Anything that violates or attacks the independence of the central bank is a mess, if you try to take away the independence of the central bank you’re going to get inflation back.”