As of June, one closely watched measure of prices, the personal consumption expenditures price index excluding food and energy, was still running more than double the Fed’s 2% target. Only two Fed officials so far have publicly said they feel rates do not need to go higher, with others saying they want the “totality” of the data in hand before making a decision.U.S. Federal Reserve raises interest rates by 0.
The current Fed “has been uniquely successful thus far in lowering inflation while leaving the unemployment rate at its lowest levels in roughly half a century,” they wrote, with the potential that policy tightening so far “may bring about further declines in inflation without a dramatic rise in the unemployment rate. This would be a first in the postwar U.S. economic experience.