![\"REUTERS\/KEVIN](\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/12\/web1_2025-12-10T110011Z_410851371_RC2VLHA5YEUJ_RTRMADP_3_USA-FED.JPG\")
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REUTERS\/KEVIN LAMARQUE\/FILE PHOTO<\/p>\n
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell holds a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 29. The Federal Reserve cut interest rates today in another divided vote, but signaled it will likely pause further reductions in borrowing costs as officials look for clearer signals about the direction of the job market and inflation that \u201cremains somewhat elevated.\u201d<\/p>\n
WASHINGTON >> The Federal Reserve cut interest rates today in another divided vote, but signaled it will likely pause further reductions in borrowing costs as officials look for clearer signals about the direction of the job market and inflation that \u201cremains somewhat elevated.\u201d<\/p>\n
New projections issued after the U.S. central bank\u2019s two-day meeting showed the median policymaker sees just one quarter-percentage-point cut in 2026, the same outlook as in September, with inflation expected to slow to around 2.4% by the end of next year, even as economic growth accelerates to an above-trend 2.3% and the unemployment rate remains at a moderate 4.4%.<\/p>\n
\u201cIn considering the extent and timing of additional adjustments to the target range for the federal funds rates, the Committee will carefully assess incoming data,\u201d the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee said in language that in the past has been used to signal a pause in policy actions \u2014 an outlook at odds with market expectations of two rate cuts next year.<\/p>\n
The decision to lower the benchmark policy rate by a quarter of a percentage point to the 3.50%-3.75% range drew three dissents, with Chicago Fed President Austan Goolsbee joining Kansas City Fed President Jeffrey Schmid in arguing the policy rate should be left unchanged, and Fed Governor Stephen Miran again advocating a larger half-percentage-point reduction.<\/p>\n
How monetary policy evolves from here, heading into a midterm U.S. election year that could revolve around the performance of the economy and with President Donald Trump urging sharper reductions, will now hinge on data that is still lagging from the impact of the 43-day federal government shutdown in October and November.<\/p>\n
The projections are in a sense optimistic: Interest rates may remain higher than anticipated, but the economy is seen growing faster even as inflation falls and the jobless rate also eases lower.<\/p>\n
Don’t miss out on what’s happening!<\/strong><\/p>\n Stay in touch with breaking news, as it happens, conveniently in your email inbox. It’s FREE!<\/p>\n But the latest policy statement and projections were crafted without the benefit of recent job and inflation reports, and instead relied on \u201cavailable indicators,\u201d which Fed officials have said include their own internal surveys, community contacts and private data.<\/p>\n The most recent official data on unemployment and inflation is for September, and showed the unemployment rate rising to 4.4% from 4.3%, while the Fed\u2019s preferred measure of inflation also increased slightly to 2.8% from 2.7%. The Fed has a 2% inflation target, but the pace of price increases has risen steadily from 2.3% in April, a fact at least partly attributable to the pass-through of rising import taxes to consumers and a driving force behind the central bank\u2019s policy divide.<\/p>\n Job and inflation data for November will be released next week, followed later by a detailed report of economic growth for the third quarter.<\/p>\n \u201cAvailable indicators suggest that economic activity has been expanding at a moderate pace,\u201d the Fed\u2019s statement said. \u201cJob gains have slowed this year, and the unemployment rate has edged up through September,\u201d it said, dropping a reference to the jobless rate as \u201clow.\u201d<\/p>\n The projections showed a core of six policymakers preferring no rate cut this year, and seven anticipating no further cuts in 2026.<\/p>\n The median projection is for one additional quarter-percentage-point cut in 2027 as well as inflation continues to subside towards the central bank\u2019s 2% target.<\/p>\n Fed Chair Jerome Powell will hold a press conference at 2:30 p.m. EST (1930 GMT) to elaborate on the meeting.<\/p>\n Additional reporting by Ann Saphir and Michael S. Derby.<\/b><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"REUTERS\/KEVIN LAMARQUE\/FILE PHOTO Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell holds a press conference in Washington, D.C., on Oct. 29.…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":438608,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[12],"tags":[64,79,4582,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-438607","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-economy","8":"tag-business","9":"tag-economy","10":"tag-editors","11":"tag-united-states","12":"tag-unitedstates","13":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115697379931701873","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438607","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=438607"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/438607\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/438608"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=438607"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=438607"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=438607"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}