Federal Reserve sees cooler inflation and slower job market, suggesting a rate cut is nearing

WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve said Wednesday that greater progress has been made in reducing inflation to its 2% target, a sign that the central bank is moving closer toward cutting its key interest rate for the first time in four years.

In a statement issued after it concluded its two-day meeting, the Fed also said that “job gains have moderated” and acknowledged that the unemployment rate has risen. The Fed is required by Congress to pursue stable prices and maximum employment, and the statement said the central bank is “attentive to the risks” to both goals, a shift after several years of focusing exclusively on combatting inflation.

Fed policymakers also chose to keep their key rate at a 23-year high of 5.3%, even as many Democratic elected officials and some economists have pushed for lower rates to bolster the economy and prevent job cuts. Republicans, including former President Donald Trump, have argued that a rate cut before the election would appear politically motivated.

Before the Fed's decision, financial market traders had priced in 100% odds that the central bank will reduce its benchmark rate at its Sept. 17-18 meeting, according to futures markets. The Fed typically seeks to avoid surprising investors with its rate decisions.

The Fed is seeking to strike a delicate balance: It wants to keep rates high enough for long enough to quell inflation, which has fallen to 2.5% from a peak two years ago of 7.1%, according to its preferred measure. But it also wants to avoid keeping borrowing costs so high that it triggers a recession. So far, it is on track for a so-called “soft landing,” in which inflation falls to 2% without a recession.

Yet with the unemployment rate ticking higher for three months in a row, some economists have raised concerns that the Fed should have cut rates Wednesday or should cut them more quickly later this year.

“The finish line is in sight and it would be tragic for the Fed to stumble and fall, with one-tenth of a mile left in the marathon, which is what I think they would be doing if they don’t start cutting,” Bharat Ramamurti, an advisor at the American Economic Liberties Project and former economist in the Biden White House, said on a call with reporters.

Also Wednesday, three Democratic senators, led by Elizabeth Warren from Massachusetts, urged Chair Jerome Powell in a letter to cut rates. The letter charged that a failure to reduce borrowing costs soon would suggest the Fed is “giving in to bullying” and would itself be a political move.

In the latest piece of good news on price increases, last Friday the government said that yearly inflation fell to 2.5% in July, according to the Fed’s preferred inflation measure. That is down from 2.6% the previous month and the lowest since February 2021, when inflation was just starting to accelerate.

At the same time, the U.S. unemployment rate has risen by nearly a half-percentage point this year to a still-low 4.1% and hiring has slowed. Last week, the Illinois Department of Employment Security reported that the unemployment rate in Cook County is 6.7%, up from 5% compared to the same period last year.

Powell and other Fed officials have highlighted they are increasingly focused on the risk that the job market could falter, another reason markets expect rate cuts soon.

The government will issue the latest jobs numbers this Friday, and economists forecast that it will say employers added 175,000 jobs in July, while the unemployment rate remained 4.1%.