By Will Connors 

CHICAGO -- Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas President Robert Kaplan said Thursday that raising short-term interest rates three times this year "is a reasonable baseline," and that he is not "looking for a pause" in rate raises as long as the U.S. employment and inflation figures continue to improve.

Mr. Kaplan said that progress in reaching the central bank's full employment and inflation objectives "gives me confidence" to be "gradually and patiently removing accommodation."

Mr. Kaplan is a voting member of the interest-rate setting Federal Open Market Committee, which met last week and raised rates, and it is expected to do so perhaps two or more times this year.

Fed officials' median expectation is that they will lift their benchmark federal-funds rate three times this year, in quarter-percentage-point steps, according to projections released last week. Their first move was after their meeting March 14-15, when they raised the rate by a quarter percentage point to a range between 0.75% and 1%.

Mr. Kaplan said the central bank will be able to make an announcement on plans for trimming the balance sheet, which will be "a healthy thing," but that "we need to make some further progress" before doing so. He didn't give specifics on timing, but said that when balance sheet announcements are made to the market, it will be done in "a gradual, predictable way."

During a wide-ranging discussion at the Chicago Council on Global Affairs Thursday evening, Mr. Kaplan was largely bullish about the U.S. economy, saying that "we're approaching full employment" and that the household sector is in "pretty good shape."

But he issued stern warnings about the country's aging population and its slow workforce growth, about the negative impacts of ignoring the effects of climate change on global economies, and about closing the country's borders to immigrants.

He noted that immigrants are expected to make up more than 50 % of U.S. workforce growth over the next 20 years.

"A distinctive hallmark of the U.S.'s success has been attracting, welcoming and assimilating immigrants, who've gone on to be successful members of our society and leaders in our country," Mr. Kaplan said. "We don't want to lose that."

Write to Will Connors at william.connors@wsj.com

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

March 23, 2017 22:04 ET (02:04 GMT)