Evan Ryser

New York Fed President John Williams on Tuesday said it was reasonable to think that the central bank might need to raise interest rates one more time at the end of the year to help bring down inflation risks. "The Fed defines price stability as 2% ...

MNI reports on outlook for Fed task forces under Chairman Kevin Warsh.

MNI interviews ISM manufacturing chief on sector outlook.

ISM Services survey chief Steve Miller discusses the October sector outlook.

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* MOST FED OFFICIALS SEE ANOTHER HIKE THIS YEAR - MINUTES * MNI: ALL PARTICIPANTS VIEWED HIKE AS APPROPRIATE IN SEPT * OFFICIALS EXPECT PRICES TO REMAIN ELEVATED IN NEAR TERM * MANY SAW FINANCIAL CONDITIONS SUPPORTIVE OF GROWTH * SOME CONCERNED THAT INFLATION IMPACTING EXPECTATIONS * MANY SAW HIKE AS PRUDENT ON RISK-MANAGEMENT GROUNDS * COUPLE INCREASED THEIR ESTIMATE OF NEUTRAL RATE * FEW OBSERVED IMPORTANCE OF PLANNING FOR MARKET STRESS

MNI speaks to a former US Census Bureau senior official about data quality.

MNI reports on the Fed's assessment of AI-driven inflation risks.

Congressional Budget Office Director Phillip Swagel told an MNI Livestreamed Connect event Thursday the agency will issue an initial estimate of the fiscal implications of the recent uptick in productivity at its next economic forecast snapshot in December, adding the AI boom is among the factors bolstering the U.S. economy against a number of headwinds. The U.S. economy has shown resiliency in the face of higher inflation, interest rates, tariffs and changes to immigration policy, Swagel said. He added that the CBO's next annual budget update will be published in January or February. "It does look like productivity growth has inflected upward, and we are working hard on that to try to understand why and by how much, and how much of that we should take on board as a long-lasting change in our forecast," Swagel said. "We'll have at least a first cut of an answer in our next economic forecast." "Stronger productivity growth will naturally offset some of the drag on the economy from the slower labor force growth. Again, all this will show up in in the full ten-year budget update in January, February. We will publish a snapshot of our economic forecast in December once it's locked down." GDP GROWTH Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent and Trump administration officials have touted resilient economic growth, driven by the artificial-intelligence build-out, reshoring manufacturing and tax cuts for consumers, as crucial tools to improve the U.S. fiscal posture. (See MNI POLICY: Trump Officials See Firm Growth Mitigating Debt: https://www.mnimarkets/articles/mni-policy-trump-officials-sees-firm-growth -mitigating-debt-1792079846133) Still, Swagel said that real GDP growth would have to be high for the debt-to-GDP ratio to be held steady. "What growth rate would be needed to keep the debt ratio from rising further? It's quite a large number." A faster economy could improve the fiscal picture, Swagel noted. "Stronger growth reduces the the deficit, but then it depends on everything else that happens," he said. "An environment with stronger growth might also be more conducive to making difficult choices." The CBO has to do revenue projections and when it comes to AI the income shares matter a lot between capital and labor income, he said. "Inequality means that more income is in higher tax brackets, but capital income generally has a lower tax rate than the labor income by the same household. So we are thinking about that." The agency is working to understand the feedback between higher levels of debt and rising yields, Swagel said. "We are still working on this topic of the fiscal feedback, and we're doing really fruitful technical work to integrate a suite of models within CBO," he said. UNSUSTAINABLE TRAJECTORY The nonpartisan agency's role is not to direct members of the Congress to do one thing or another, Swagel said. "There's a sense which, I think our numbers speak for themselves about the the challenge with the fiscal trajectory, and they will continue to do that, and we'll make that clear when we publish in January or February." "My interactions with members of Congress have increased my view of them," Swagel said. "At least the members I interact with, the ones on the budget, are thoughtful. Obviously they have their own views, their policy views, but they're thoughtful and they understand the budget by and large." Congress understands the fiscal trajectory is unsustainable, he said. "There is a wide understanding about the challenge in the U.S. fiscal trajectory," he said. "I'm not saying every single member and every single policymaker, but there's wide understanding."

MNI interviews former Fed board economist Bill English on monetary policy outlook.