Fed's Yellen Says Aim Now is to Let 'Healthy' Economy Coast Along

The Federal Reserve plans to raise U.S. interest rates gradually so as to sustain healthy growth without letting the economy overheat, Fed Chair Janet Yellen said on Monday.

"We want to be ahead of the curve and not behind it," Yellen said at an event at the University of Michigan's Ford School of Public Policy in Ann Arbor. Now that years of aggressive monetary policy easing has nursed the economy back to its current "pretty healthy" state, the aim now is to allow "the economy to kind of coast and remain on an even keel," she said.

(Reporting by Ann Saphir and Jonathan Spicer; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)