A variety of these rules, which I discussed in a speech earlier this summer, indicates that given the current inflation rate of just under our target of 2 percent and the current unemployment rate of 5.9 percent, the funds rate should be above zero or should be lifting off in the very near future.
1 In fact, maintaining a funds rate target near zero is unprecedented under such circumstances and as  1  4  Charles I. Plosser, “Systematic Monetary Policy and Communication,” remarks to the Economic Club of New York, New York, NY, June 24, 2014.