Minutes released Wednesday from the Federal Reserve’s January policy meeting show that officials are worried that inflation might remain high, meaning interest rates—currently at a 23-year high—could continue to impact the cost of borrowing for Americans.
Inflation has slowed since the summer of 2022, when it reached a four-decade high, with the Consumer Price Index showing that prices rose 3.1% for the 12 months that ended this January. This was a consideration cooling from the 6.4% increase for the period that ended in January 2023.
However, the Fed kept rates steady for the fourth meeting in a row. Officials typically review data from several months before making any decisions about the interest rate, and Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell indicated that a rate cut may not come in the spring, despite market expectation.
According to the meeting meetings, the economists “continued to view the uncertainty around the baseline projection as elevated but noted that this uncertainty had diminished substantially over the past year.”
