Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis President Neel Kashkari said Wednesday that he doesn’t see much inflationary pressure building, arguing that means the central banks has the “luxury” of keeping rates low to help boost continued job growth.

The comments came at a meeting between Kashkari and black community activists in Minneapolis, Minn. to discuss economic disparities between black and white communities. “When I look at the data, I don’t see much inflationary pressure, so we have the luxury of taking time to let the economy keep creating jobs,” Kashkari said to the group. “Everybody at the Fed wants the job market to keep healing and we would love to see more people getting back to work.”

Kashkari isn’t a member this year of Fed’s interest-rate setting committee, which has kept rates near zero since the financial crisis. Since raising its benchmark federal-funds rate to between 0.5% and 0.25% at the end of 2015, the central banks has held rates steady. Its next meeting is Sept. 20-21.

The event was organized by Minnesota Neighborhoods Organizing for Change, part of the Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up coalition, which advocates for keeping interest rates low to help boost employment in low-income communities.

An expanded version of this report appears on WSJ.com.

By SHAYNDI RAICE

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