Lockhart Says Fed Shouldn’t Tie Policy to Jobless Rate

Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Dennis Lockhart said the Fed shouldn’t tie policy to a single data point like the unemployment rate and instead should track broader measures of the job market.

“It’s appropriate to be cautious about relying on a single indicator of labor market trends, for example the unemployment rate, to determine whether the condition of substantial improvement has been met,” Lockhart said today in a speech in Chattanooga, Tennessee. An assessment of employment and the economy needs to be “reinforced by other indicators.”