Fed's Goolsbee says inflation is on track to central bank's 2% goal

(Reuters) - Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee said on Friday he believes inflation is "on track" to reaching the U.S. central bank's 2% target, driven in coming months by what he expects to be a decline in housing inflation.

"It's working through in the way we've anticipated," Goolsbee said at an economic symposium at the regional Fed bank, adding that there is "no evidence" that inflation has stalled at 3%, as some analysts have worried. Progress has been helped, he said, by public faith in the Fed's determination to beat inflation, which soared to 40-year highs last year.

It has also been helped by improvements in the supply of both labor and goods, which was disrupted during the coronavirus pandemic and its aftermath, he said.

By the Fed's preferred measure, the personal consumption expenditures price index, inflation registered 3% in October.

Meanwhile the labor market is "very strong" even as it gets into better balance, setting up the U.S. economy for a "soft landing" where inflation falls but unemployment does not surge, he said.

Goolsbee's remarks were among the last from Fed policymakers before their Dec. 12-13 policy meeting, at which the central bank is expected to leave its benchmark overnight interest rate unchanged in the 5.25%-5.50% range for the third straight time.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell is expected to speak at 11 a.m. EST (1600 GMT).

(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Paul Simao)