Two Federal Reserve bank presidents on Wednesday met separately with community and labor groups that are pushing for continued near-zero interest rates just as U.S. central bankers appear to be only weeks away from raising them.

Representatives of the groups said that by airing their concerns about labor market health to Richmond Fed President Jeffrey Lacker and Dallas Fed President Rob Kaplan, they hope to help shape policymakers' understanding of the economy, if not necessarily their views on monetary policy.

The views of Kaplan, the new president of the Dallas Fed, are unclear, but his predecessor Richard Fisher made the regional Fed bank's name synonymous with opposition to easy monetary policy.

Lacker is a policy hawk who cast the lone dissents on the Fed's decisions in September and October to continue the central bank's low-rate policies.

"Our expectation isn't that we are going to be able to change his mind," said Michael De Los Santos, who is organizing the meeting with Lacker.

To Lacker, the near-normal unemployment rate of 5.1 percent means the labor market no longer needs the lift provided by exceptionally low interest rates.

"We want to be able to present our side of the statistics," said De Los Santos, who is director of operations at Action NC, a community and activist group. Attending the meeting will be a young man from Charlotte who has struggled to pay for college and is worried about finding full-time employment, and a fast food worker from Richmond, Virginia who has trouble making ends meet, he said.

Kaplan will likewise meet with workers who have struggled to find adequate jobs and income, said Shawn Sebastian of the Center for Popular Democracy, which organized the meeting in Dallas.

A Dallas Fed spokesman did not immediately respond to a request for comment. A Richmond Fed spokesman confirmed the meeting and deferred any comment until after it is over.

Including today's meetings, members of the so-called Fed Up Coalition have had sit-down meetings with nine of the Fed's 12 regional Fed bank presidents, and four of the five Washington-based Board of Governors. (Reporting by Ann Saphir in San Francisco; Editing by Christian Plumb)

Source: Reuters