FOMC Voters Goolsbee, Schmid Cite Inflation Concerns Driving Dissents

02:48 PM EST, 12/12/2025 (MT Newswires) -- Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee and his Kansas City counterpart, Jeffrey Schmid, said Friday that they dissented from a majority on the Federal Open Market Committee this week due to inflation risks.

Goolsbee and Schmid voted in favor of leaving interest rates steady earlier this week, when the FOMC eased its monetary policy for the third straight meeting.

The Fed should have waited for additional data, especially on inflation, Goolsbee said in a statement.

A US federal government shutdown that ended last month has delayed key economic reports, impacting the central bank's data-dependent stance.

"Given that inflation has been above our target for four and a half years, further progress on it has been stalled for several months, and almost all the businesspeople and consumers we have spoken to in the district lately identify prices as a main concern, I felt the more prudent course would have been to wait for more information," Goolsbee said in a statement.

Goolsbee said that the labor market is cooling only moderately, giving policymakers the flexibility to stay put. "There is little to suggest a deterioration of the labor market so rapid that we could not have waited for the data to come in the early months of next year before deciding to act," Goolsbee said.

Goolsbee cautioned against front-loading rate cuts too heavily and assuming that elevated inflation will be transitory.

Schmid said in a separate statement that with inflation pressures still evident, "my preference would be to keep monetary policy modestly restrictive." The labor market is cooling, but remains largely in balance, he said.

"Right now, I see an economy that is showing momentum and inflation that is too hot, suggesting that policy is not overly restrictive," Schmid said.

Philadelphia Fed President Anna Paulson said inflation will likely ease in 2026 as tariffs-linked price pressures on goods are expected to disappear by the middle of next year.

"On net, I am still a little more concerned about labor market weakness than about upside risks to inflation," Paulson, who is not an FOMC voter this year, said in prepared remarks for delivery at an event.

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