(Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Austan Goolsbee said it’s too early to declare victory in the central bank’s inflation fight, and decisions on interest-rate cuts will be based on incoming economic data. 

“We’ve made a lot of progress in 2023, but I still caution everyone, it’s not done,” Goolsbee said Sunday in an interview on CBS’s Face the Nation. “And so the data is going to drive what’s going to happen to rates.”

Goolsbee has been more optimistic than most policymakers about the prospects of a soft landing for the US economy, lauding inflation progress this year while noting that it’s still far from the Fed’s 2% goal.

“We’ve got to get inflation down to target,” he said Sunday. “Until we’re convinced that we’re on path to that, it’s an overstatement to be counting the chickens.”

Policymakers left rates unchanged for a third consecutive time on Dec. 13 and signaled that they expect to cut rates three times next year, according to their median rate forecast released after the Fed’s meeting. 

Chair Jerome Powell also said officials discussed the topic of rate cuts at the gathering, setting off a market rally. Stocks hit records, bond yields plummeted and investors priced in even more cuts next year than they had previously projected.

Two Fed officials tried to temper market expectations on Friday, saying that it was still too early for policymakers to think about lowering borrowing costs. 

“We aren’t really talking about rate cuts,” New York Fed President John Williams said on CNBC, adding that talk of a March cut was “premature.”

Goolsbee on Friday didn’t rule out the possibility of a rate cut in March, however, according to the Wall Street Journal. In an interview with the news outlet Friday, he said the risks are becoming more balanced, indicating focus may need to begin shifting toward the Fed’s mandate to promote maximum employment. 

Policymakers will receive fresh data on their preferred inflation gauge, the personal consumption expenditures price index, on Friday. A separate inflation measure released last week showed consumer prices picked up in November on increases in housing and other service-sector costs.

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