“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. “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.