WASHINGTON: Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Austan Goolsbee said on Monday that at the Federal Reserve's policy meeting last week he penciled in three rate cuts for this year.

At that meeting, the US central bank kept its benchmark overnight lending rate in a target range of 5.25%-5.5%, while the median estimate for interest rate reductions that policymakers projected for the year was three.

"I was at the median for this one," Goolsbee said in an interview with Yahoo Finance, while declining to say when he thought an easing in borrowing costs might begin.

Goolsbee added that price increase readings for January and February were higher than expected with the "main puzzle" still being housing inflation.

"So we're in an uncertain state but it doesn't feel to me like we've changed fundamentally the story that we're getting back to target," Goolsbee said.