He pointed to economic data like non-farm payrolls, saying they were later revised to reflect a weaker economic picture. Akintewe said: "Is the economy already weaker than the headline data suggests and [the Fed] should already be easing?" "And once you've done that amount of easing, it takes six to eight months to transmit that." "The other question no one seems to ask is, why is the policy rate still at 5.5% when inflation is down [to] almost 2.5%? Like, do you need a 300 basis point real policy rate in this kind of environment with all the uncertainty that we're facing?"

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Persons: abdrn, Kenneth Akintewe, Akintewe Organizations: U.S . Labor Department, of Labor Statistics, Fed, U.S, CNBC Locations: U.S