(Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee said he wants to see more evidence the Fed is on track toward its 2% inflation goal before cutting interest rates, though he stopped short of ruling out a reduction in March.

“I don’t like tying our hands ahead of time when we’ve got weeks and months of data to come in,” Goolsbee said Friday in an interview on PBS, when asked whether he thinks a rate cut at the Fed’s March 19-20 meeting is premature. 

“We ought to base those decisions on how the actual data come through,” he said. “More and more progress like what we have seen on inflation and on jobs is what we need to see to feel comfort that we’re on target.”

A report released earlier Friday showed a surprising reacceleration of the US labor market in January, as employers added the most workers in a year and wages jumped. Inflation has cooled steadily over the past few months and the Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, excluding volatile food and energy, was up 1.9% in December on a six-month annualized basis.

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“So far it’s been going pretty well,” Goolsbee said of the economy. “The year 2023 by that dual mandate goal went quite well, and we just want to make sure that we’re on path to see that.”

Fed officials have signaled their next policy move is likely to be an interest-rate cut, following two years of raising rates to try and cool inflation. But several have said they’re not in a rush to start easing policy. 

Fed Chair Jerome Powell, speaking in a press conference following a Fed meeting earlier this week, said the strong economy gives policymakers more room to wait and see if inflation is sustainably on a path down to 2%. 

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