Yellen says higher interest rates would be 'a plus': report

Getting inflation and rates back to a normal environment would be good, Treasury secretary tells Bloomberg

U.S. Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said in an interview Sunday that higher interest rates would be "a plus" for policy makers.

Speaking with Bloomberg News in London, Yellen said it's OK if President Joe Biden's $4 trillion spending plans trigger inflation and higher rates.

"If we ended up with a slightly higher interest-rate environment it would actually be a plus for society's point of view and the Fed's point of view," she told Bloomberg.

"We've been fighting inflation that's too low and interest rates that are too low now for a decade," she said. "We want them to go back to" a normal environment, "and if this helps a little bit to alleviate things then that's not a bad thing -- that's a good thing."

The Fed has said it won't start to scale back its $120 billion-a-month asset purchases until the economy had made "substantial further progress" toward the Fed's goals of full employment and stable long-run 2% inflation.

While indicators of inflation have been rising whenever the Fed starts paring back its purchases.