The economy may still achieve a soft landing—a reduction in inflation without causing a recession—Chicago Federal Reserve President Austan Goolsbee said on CNBC’s Squawk Box.

Calling such a possibility a “golden path,” Goolsbee said that, “If that happened, ... it would just be a continuation of what we’ve already seen this year, which is unemployment up very modestly, while inflation has come down a lot. ... That’s our goal.”

The Federal Reserve Board’s Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) did not raise interest rates at its last meeting, maintaining the target range for the federal funds rate at 5-1/4 to 5-1/2 percent as it seeks to reduce inflation to 2 percent. Core inflation is currently 3.7 percent, CNBC reported.

Goolsbee pointed out that the Fed is making progress on the inflation rate and said that the Fed might equal the fastest dropping inflation rate in the last century, which occurred in 1982.  “We’ll see what happens over the next couple of months,” he said.

Goolsbee also said that the Fed will be data dependent moving forward.

“The process of getting inflation sustainably down to 2 percent has a long way to go,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said in remarks at a news conference following the FOMC’s meeting on Nov. 1. He wouldn't dismiss the possibility of raising rates again in the future: “The idea that it would be difficult to raise again after stopping for a meeting or two is just not right. The committee will always do what it thinks is appropriate at the time.”

The FOMC’s next meeting is on Dec. 12 and 13.