US Monetary Policy / Fed’s Bullard sees substantial progress in labor markets

There’s been “substantial progress” in the U.S. labor market, St. Louis Fed President James Bullard told CNBC on Monday. But inflation is low, he added—saying, “What’s the hurry” to taper the Federal Reserve’s massive bond-buying program.

“The unemployment rate is down almost a full point from when we start this program in September 2012. We’ve had faster job growth,” Bullard said in a “Squawk Box” interview. “Every jobs report that continues to show more jobs being created and a tick down in the unemployment rate is going to make the probability of a taper go up.”…

He reiterated that the $85-billion-a-month asset purchases, known as quantitative easing, is “data-dependent,” and would like to see inflation heading back toward 2 percent.

Bullard also argued there’s “room on the balance sheet,” which is approaching $4 trillion, to continued buying. “If you look at the size of the balance sheet relative to GDP, who’s got the biggest one, Japan, Europe, U.K., U.S.? We’re fourth out of those guys,” he continued. “If something bad is going to happen … with the balance sheet, these other central banks should have passed that and already had that experience and they haven’t.”

Chosen excerpts by Job Market Monitor. Read the whole story at 

via Fed’s Bullard: We’ve made substantial progress in US labor markets.