Fed’s Waller, a candidate for chair, sees potential for half-point cut if labor market weakens further

Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller reiterated his support for an interest rate cut in September and opened the door to a potentially larger move if the labor market continues to weaken.

In a speech Thursday evening, the policymaker said he expects the August nonfarm payrolls report to be weak, with Bureau of Labor Statistics revisions indicating that the economy may have lost jobs over the past several months.

“Based on what I know today, I would support a 25 basis point cut at the Committee’s meeting on September 16 and 17,” Waller said during the speech in Miami. “While there are signs of a weakening labor market, I worry that conditions could deteriorate further and quite rapidly, and I think it is important that the [Federal Open market Committee] not wait until such a deterioration is under way and risk falling behind the curve in setting appropriate monetary policy.”

A basis point is 0.01%, so a reduction of 25 basis points would be equal to a quarter percentage point.

Waller said he believes the Fed can use its power over interest rates to stave off further labor market weakening. “So, let’s get on with it,” he said.

Considered to be on President Donald Trump’s short list of potential successors for Fed Chair Jerome Powell next year, Waller was one of two Fed governors to dissent from the July FOMC decision to hold the central bank’s benchmark interest rate steady in a range between 4.25%-4.5%. It was the first time multiple governors had opposed a committee rate decision in more than 30 years.

Since then, Waller said, the incoming data has only reinforced his belief that lower interest rates are necessary. He said he would still favor keeping the cut to a quarter point but, “That view, of course, could change if the employment report for August, due out a week from [Friday], points to a substantially weakening economy and inflation remains well contained.”

He added he expects “additional cuts over the next three to six months” as the Fed remains as much as 1.5 percentage points above a neutral level.

When the jobs report is released, the BLS not only will update its counts from the previous two months but also will release a preview of its annual “benchmark” payroll revision. Waller said he anticipates the adjustment will show the economy created on average 60,000 fewer jobs a month than originally reported.

“That would mean that private-sector employment actually shrank, on average, in the past three months and that job creation earlier in the year was weaker than currently reported,” he said.

Following a lackluster July jobs report and sharp downward revisions from prior months, Trump fired the BLS commissioner and named conservative economist E.J. Antoni as the new chief. Waller, a Trump appointee from the president’s first term, said there’s nothing wrong with raising questions about the accuracy of BLS data considering the large revisions, but said the adjustments more likely are related to businesses being slow in returning their monthly surveys.

Waller added that he disagrees with a common assessment from other Fed officials lately that the labor market is “solid” because the unemployment rate is a relatively low 4.2%.

“I believe that any decline in labor supply is only masking weakening demand in the labor market. Whether or not supply is down, weakening demand is not good, and it is specifically what monetary policy is intended to address,” he said.