Federal Reserve policymakers, meeting next week, should provide more clarity about raising interest rates in December.

After keeping the Federal Funds rate near zero for 7 years, the Fed raised its target range to 0.25 to 0.50 percent last December. Quite unrelated, the economy went through another rough winter and spring with GDP advancing at only a 1.1 percent annual rate.

The economy improved in the third quarter, and added an average of 192,000 jobs each month. Unemployment has remained at about 5 percent, because adult labor force participation is ticking up as job opportunities become more attractive.

Wages are up significantly for African Americans, and unemployment is down in presidential swing states, where restructuring in manufacturing has often killed jobs. Historically, as the economy reaches full employment the pockets more resistant to wage and employment gains— minorities and dislocated workers—experience the most robust progress.

Also, retailers are hiring earlier for the holiday season, because the starting point for this shopping burst increasingly begins around Halloween instead of Thanksgiving and they expect challenges in finding suitable workers.

Inflation picked up in September and should be stronger going forward as gasoline, natural gas and other energy prices reflect the recent firming in oil prices.

Although inflation has not pierced the Fed’s 2 percent target, it is important for it to get out in front of wage and energy price pressures, while it still enjoys the latitude to gradually raise rates. An abrupt interest rate response to a surge in wages and prices could kill the economic expansion even though most families and many businesses have not fully recovered from the financial crisis.

Even as the Fed raised short rates a notch last December, mortgage and Treasury rates moved lower as weakening economic conditions in China and political turmoil in Europe drove foreign investors into U.S. bonds. Lower rates have supported a stronger recovery in U.S. new home sales.