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Fed Pauses Interest Rate Hikes—but Signals Two More May Come This Year

The Federal Reserve opted against a rate hike—for now—in order to give officials time to assess the effects of having made 10 in a row in recent months.

The Federal Reserve pressed pause on raising its key interest rate on Wednesday, with officials explaining that more time would be needed to fully assess the effects of having raised the benchmark 10 times in a row in recent months. “We understand the hardship that high inflation is causing, and we remain strongly committed to bring inflation back down to our 2% goal,” Jerome Powell, the chair of the Fed, said at a news conference, according to the Associated Press. “The process of getting inflation down is going to be a gradual one—it’s going to take some time.” As for the future, half of the 18 policymakers who make up the Federal Open Market Committee indicated that they expect two more hikes this year, according to CNBC. A bump of two quarter-percentage points would push median expectation of a key rate to 5.6 percent, according to the central bank’s economic forecasts. The rest of the committee remained starkly divided, however, with two members saying they expected three hikes, one indicating four, and two predicting there would be no more hikes. The committee next meets July 25.