SynopsisRichmond Fed President Tom Barkin views further rate hikes as an open question. Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack advocates for an immediate interest rate increase as she believes current business borrowing pressures add to inflationary pressures.AgenciesRichmond Federal Reserve President Tom Barkin said on Thursday that whether the US central bank needs to raise interest rates remains an “open question,” while Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack reiterated her call for an immediate increase to curb persistent inflation, according to Reuters’ reports.“The inflation mystery is not whether inflation will come back to our 2% target or not. The Federal Open Market Committee has made clear that we are committed to doing so,” Barkin said in remarks prepared for delivery to the Greenville Chamber of Commerce. “The open question is how it gets there. Will the Fed need to raise rates or is inflation already on a path down to target?”Barkin said much of the current inflation had been driven by temporary shocks, including higher tariffs and oil prices, as well as surging demand for supplies and labour linked to the artificial intelligence infrastructure buildout, which he said should "ease at some point".“The current level of interest rates, many think, is still restrictive enough to bring inflation down,” Barkin said.Hammack, however, maintained that the Fed should raise rates immediately to bring inflation down and restrain business growth and investment.“When I’m talking to businesses, I hear that businesses are excited to raise funds; they’re excited to borrow so they can continue to invest. They see the growth opportunities, which is great; I want them to continue to see growth opportunities, but if we have too much of that growth.... it could mean that that’s putting additional pressure on price increases, which adds more inflationary pressure,” Hammack said at the Dayton Area Chamber of Commerce in Dayton, Ohio.“We need to make sure that we’ve got some amount of restraint coming from policy so that we can get inflation from this above-3% number back down to that 2% objective.”Hammack and two other officials had dissented at last month’s Fed meeting, when the majority voted to keep short-term borrowing costs unchanged at 3.50%-3.75%, and sought to increase the rates.She said that while inflation data had improved over the past two months, the progress was not enough to convince her that the trend had decisively turned, particularly as inflation has remained above the Fed’s 2% target for more than five years.“I don’t have confidence that we’re going to continue to see that or that we’re going to see them low enough that it’s going to bring us back down to that 2%,” she said. “The job is to make sure that we are making progress towards that 2%. And then the question is how quickly do we need to deliver on that 2% objective and maybe we’d get there, but if it takes us another three or four years to get there, is that OK?”Hammack said a Cincinnati retailer told her it was raising prices “because they don’t know where the next price pressure is going to come from, but they know it’s coming from somewhere.”She also cited the financial strain on households, including a father who had to miss his son’s travel football games because of high fuel costs and people with decent jobs who were turning to food banks to manage their budgets.“I think that we need to act now because I think we need to bring inflation back down to that 2% objective faster than what a longer-term glide path would say with interest rates at this level,” she said.(Disclaimer: This article is based on inputs from agencies. These do not represent the views of The Economic Times)Read More News on(What's moving Sensex and Nifty Track latest market news, stock tips, Budget 2025, Share Market on Budget 2025 and expert advice, on ETMarkets. Also, ETMarkets.com is now on Telegram. For fastest news alerts on financial markets, investment strategies and stocks alerts, subscribe to our Telegram feeds .) Subscribe to ET Prime and read the Economic Times ePaper Online.and Sensex Today. Top Trending Stocks: SBI Share Price, Axis Bank Share Price, HDFC Bank Share Price, Infosys Share Price, Wipro Share Price, NTPC Share Price...moreless(You can now subscribe to our ETMarkets WhatsApp channel)Read More News on(What's moving Sensex and Nifty Track latest market news, stock tips, Budget 2025, Share Market on Budget 2025 and expert advice, on ETMarkets. Also, ETMarkets.com is now on Telegram. For fastest news alerts on financial markets, investment strategies and stocks alerts, subscribe to our Telegram feeds .) Subscribe to ET Prime and read the Economic Times ePaper Online.and Sensex Today. Top Trending Stocks: SBI Share Price, Axis Bank Share Price, HDFC Bank Share Price, Infosys Share Price, Wipro Share Price, NTPC Share Price...moreless