Federal Reserve officials have been looking for further evidence that their interest rate increases over the past two years are weighing on the economy and job market, and Friday’s employment report roundly provided that signal. Average hourly earnings, a measure of wage growth, climbed 3.9 percent in April from a year earlier. That was both […]
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Federal Reserve officials left interest rates unchanged and signaled that they were wary about how stubborn inflation was proving, paving the way for a longer period of high borrowing costs. The Fed held rates steady at 5.3 percent on Wednesday, leaving them at a more than two-decade high, where they have been set since July. […]
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Federal Reserve officials are fiercely protective of their separation from politics, but the presidential election is putting the institution on a crash course with partisan wrangling. Fed officials set policy independently of the White House, meaning that while presidents can push for lower interest rates, they cannot force central bankers to cut borrowing costs. Congress […]
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Federal Reserve officials will conclude their two-day policy meeting on Wednesday afternoon, and while central bankers are widely expected to leave interest rates unchanged, there is an unusual degree of uncertainty about what exactly they will signal about the future. On the one hand, officials could stick with their recent script: Their next policy move […]
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The Federal Reserve’s most closely watched inflation measure remained stubborn in March, the latest evidence that price increases are not fading as quickly as policymakers would like, and another reason that interest rates may stay higher for longer. Investors came into 2024 hopeful that Fed officials would cut rates substantially this year, but those hopes […]
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Sky-high mortgage rates and other elevated borrowing costs are pinching American consumers ahead of the 2024 election, threatening President Biden’s chances at a second term. Yet so far, Mr. Biden has not called on the Federal Reserve, which has raised interest rates to their highest levels in more than two decades, to slash those costs. […]
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The Federal Reserve is likely to wait longer than initially expected to cut interest rates given stubborn inflation readings in recent months, the central bank’s top two officials said Tuesday. Policymakers came into 2024 looking for evidence that inflation was continuing to cool rapidly, as it did late last year. Instead, progress on inflation has […]
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America seemed headed for an economic fairy-tale ending in late 2023. The painfully rapid inflation that had kicked off in 2021 appeared to be cooling in earnest, and economic growth had begun to gradually moderate after a series of Federal Reserve interest rate increases. But 2024 has brought a spate of surprises: The economy is […]
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Investors were betting big on Federal Reserve rate cuts at the start of 2024, wagering that central bankers would lower interest rates to around 4 percent by the end of the year. But after months of stubborn inflation and strong economic growth, the outlook is starting to look much less dramatic. Market pricing now suggests […]
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