WASHINGTON (REUTERS) – Three United States Federal Reserve policymakers on Tuesday (Oct 12) said the economy has healed enough for the central bank to begin to withdraw its crisis-era support, cementing expectations the Fed will start to taper its monthly bond purchases as soon as next month.<\/p>\n

“I myself believe that the ‘substantial further progress’ standard has more than been met with regard to our price-stability mandate and has all but been met with regard to our employment mandate,” Fed vice-chair Richard Clarida told the Institute of International Finance virtual annual meeting.<\/p>\n

He was referring to the Fed’s promise to keep buying US$120 billion (S$162.8 billion) of Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities each month until the economy had met that standard on both its mandates.<\/p>\n

Fed policymakers at their last meeting agreed that tapering “may soon be warranted” and would likely conclude in the middle of next year, he said.<\/p>\n

Mr Clarida’s upbeat assessment likely echoes the sentiments of his boss, Fed chair Jerome Powell, who previously said that he only needed to see a “decent” September US jobs report to be ready to begin to taper bond buys in November.<\/p>\n

The economy has strengthened and “conditions in the labour market have continued to improve,” Mr Clarida said, although he noted the coronavirus pandemic continues to weigh on employment and participation.<\/p>\n

Speaking in separate appearances on Tuesday, both Atlanta Fed president Raphael Bostic and St. Louis Fed president James Bullard said they also endorsed a November start.<\/p>\n

“I think that the progress has been made, and the sooner we get moving on that the better,” Mr Bostic said in an interview with the Financial Times.<\/p>\n

Mr Bullard, speaking on CNBC, said he would like to wrap up the taper by the first quarter of next year so that if inflation stays high or goes even higher the Fed could raise rates “in the spring or summer if we had to do so.”<\/p>\n

But he also said that such a move need not come at the cost of gains in the labour market.<\/p>\n

Employers added a smaller-than-expected 194,000 jobs last month, a Labour Department report showed. But Mr Bullard said he expects growth to pick up in the fourth and first quarters, pushing the unemployment rate below 4 per cent and to pre-pandemic levels by the spring.<\/p>\n

Fed policymakers at their last meeting saw the unemployment rate falling to 4.8 per cent by the end of this year, a benchmark Friday’s report showed it had already reached last month.<\/p>\n

The Fed began buying bonds as part of its emergency response to the Covid-19 pandemic in March last year to stabilise financial markets and keep borrowing costs low.<\/p>\n

Mr Bostic said at a virtual event organised by the Peterson Institute for International Economics that financial markets now have plenty of liquidity, minimising the odds that tapering the purchases will have an adverse effect on markets or the economy. “I actually think the economy has a lot of positive momentum,” he\u00a0said.<\/p>\n

Mr Bullard agreed, saying that despite the recent surge in Covid-19 cases that slowed growth last quarter, the economy is in “great shape”.<\/p>\n