Federal Reserve Board Chair Janet Yellen said she still expects to raise interest rates this year and repeated that the subsequent pace of increases will be gradual.
“I expect that it will be appropriate at some point later this year to take the first step to raise the federal funds rate and thus begin normalizing monetary policy,” Yellen said in her first public remarks since the June meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee.
“But I want to emphasize that the course of the economy and inflation remains highly uncertain, and unanticipated developments could delay or accelerate this first step,” she said in the text of a speech Friday in Cleveland.