Susan Collins, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, backed last Wednesday’s quarter-point interest rate increase, which lifted the Fed’s benchmark rate to roughly 3.9%, and said she expects one more hike before the end of the year. She also expects borrowing costs to remain on hold through 2027. Collins cited insufficient progress toward the Fed’s 2% inflation target, renewed Middle East fighting in August and resilient hiring as reasons for supporting the move. Companies across her district—Massachusetts, Connecticut, Maine, Rhode Island and Vermont—are reporting higher costs and indicating they may pass them on to consumers, which she said could keep inflation elevated. Austan Goolsbee, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, took a more cautious view, saying the Fed may need to create economic pain by raising rates and reducing the gap between supply and demand. He also indicated that policymakers may eventually need more than the single additional hike projected last week if data show inflation is being driven by demand. Neither Collins nor Goolsbee votes on the Fed’s rate-setting committee this year; Goolsbee’s voting rotation returns next year and Collins’s in 2028. The Fed’s preferred inflation gauge, the personal consumption expenditures index, was 3.7% year over year in June, down from 4.1% in May, partly because a temporary U.S.-Iran ceasefire briefly lowered energy prices. That truce has since collapsed.