Fed's Waller says next jobs report, not Supreme Court ruling, will be key for March interest rate decision

By Greg Robb

Fed governor Christopher Waller has been pressing for interest rate cuts.

The February jobs report, and not the Supreme Court ruling overturning a large part of President Donald Trump's tariffs on imported goods, will be key to whether the Federal Reserve needs to cut interest rates in March, Federal Reserve Governor Christopher Waller said on Monday.

"Traditional central bank wisdom suggests that we should 'look through' tariffs. I did this when they went up and will do so if they come down," Waller said.

In a speech to the National Association for Business Economics, Waller said he was focused more attention on the labor market.

Waller has been pressing the Fed to continue cutting rates, saying he was worried the labor market was weakening. Waller dissented from the Fed's decision to pause at its January meeting after three straight rate cuts.

Waller said he was surprised when the Labor Department reported a surprising 172,000 private sector jobs were created in the first month of the year.

Waller said he has some concerns the strong January jobs report could turn out to be "more noise than signal."

But he added he couldn't dismiss the possibility that the labor market data has pivoted to more solid footing. If so, it may be appropriate to pause interest rate cuts, he said.

Waller said the two possibilities - whether the February jobs is strong or weak is now "a coin flip." The data will be released on March 6.

The CME's FedWatch tool says the market doesn't think it'll be a coin flip, with a 96% chance the federal funds rate will remain between 3.5% and 3.75%.

The 2-year Treasury BX:TMUBMUSD02Y, which closely tracks Fed rates, was little moved at 3.48%.

-Greg Robb

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02-23-26 0833ET