{"id":50116,"date":"2025-11-19T18:33:00","date_gmt":"2025-11-20T00:33:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=50116"},"modified":"2025-11-19T21:39:16","modified_gmt":"2025-11-20T03:39:16","slug":"federal-reserve-members-at-odds-on-december-interest-rate-cut","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/?p=50116","title":{"rendered":"Federal Reserve members at odds on December interest rate cut"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Nov. 19 (UPI) — Federal Reserve<\/a> officials disagreed over whether the central bank should lower interest rates at its December meeting after approving back-to-back reductions, according to minutes from the October meeting.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Quarter-point changes from eacvh of the last two meetings have lowered them to a range of 3.7% to 4%. The last change was Dec. 18, 2024, in a range of 4.25% to 4.5%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The next Federal Open Market Committee meeting is scheduled for Dec. 9 and 10 in Washington, D.C. The last meetings<\/a> were Oct. 27-29 and Sept. 16-17.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There is about a 1 in 3 chance of a rate cut next month, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch measure of futures pricing on Wednesday, CNBC reported<\/a>. Odds for a January cut are around 66%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

At meetings, there are 19 participants but only 12 vote with a 10-2 decision last month.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“In discussing the near-term course of monetary policy, participants expressed strongly differing views about what policy decision would most likely be appropriate at the committee’s December meeting,” the minutes said<\/a>.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The minutes noted “most participants” saw further cuts likely in the coming months, though not necessarily in December.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Some policymakers backing a cut could have also supported the Fed leaving them alone.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Several participants assessed that a further lowering of the target range for the federal funds rate could well be appropriate in December if the economy evolved about as they expected over the coming intermeeting period,” the minutes said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Many participants suggested that, under their economic outlooks, it would likely be appropriate to keep the target range unchanged for the rest of the year.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Last month, two members dissented in the vote.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sephen Miran, who was recently picked by President Donald Trump<\/a> to join the Fed’s board of governors, again voted for a half-point reduction. Jeffrey Schmid, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, voted against any changes.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A decision has not been unanimous for three meetings in a row.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Miran, Christopher Waller and Michelle Bowman want cuts to stop weakness in the labor market.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Regional Presidents Schmid Susan Collins<\/a> of Boston and Alberto Musalem of St. Louis are concerned that cutting more could prevent the Fed from getting to its 2% inflation goal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The moderates are Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome, Vice Chair Philip Jefferson and New York President John Williams<\/a>, who back being patient.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

During a news conference after the October meeting, Powell said a rate drop in December was not a “foregone conclusion.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Powell said there are differences in the economic outlook and how much officials felt comfortable tolerating the risk of inflation remaining elevated or the labor market suffering.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

No action will certainly upset Trump, who has repeatedly criticized Powell and called him “too late Powell” along with other derogatory terms such as “food” and “clown.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Wednesday, Trump again threatened to remove Powell before his term ends in May, declaring, “I’ll be honest, I’d love to fire his ass,” during the U.S.-Saudi Investment Forum in Washington, D.C.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Trump urged Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent to “work on” Powell to lower interest rates.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“The only thing Scott’s blowing it on is the Fed,” Trump said. “The rates are too high, Scott, and if you don’t get it fixed fast, I’m gonna fire your ass.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

White House spokesman Kush Desai\u2002later told CNBC in a statement<\/a>: “The White House maintains complete confidence in Secretary Bessent’s job running the Treasury Department and President Trump’s search for a new — and competent — chairman of the Federal Reserve.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Officials noted a slowdown in monthly jobs growth was because of fewer workers since Trump’s immigration crackdown. Instead, they were more concerned about inflation remaining above the central bank’s 2% target for nearly five years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Inflation is now at 3%.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

“Most participants noted that, against a backdrop of elevated inflation readings and a very gradual cooling of labor market conditions, further policy rate reductions could add to the risk of higher inflation becoming entrenched or could be misinterpreted as implying a lack of policymaker commitment to the 2 percent inflation objective,” the minutes said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Federal Reserve in October didn’t have some key economic data, including payroll growth and inflation, because of the federal government shutdown that began Oct. 1 and ended last week at 43 days.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

This “made it challenging to gauge the more recent strength of overall activity,” the minutes said.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Power said it was like “driving in the fog.”<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The September jobs report will be released on Thursday, and goods and services that companies use to make products will come out next week.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Bureau of Labor Statistics said on Wednesday that it was delaying the release of the November jobs report to Dec. 16, and the agency said it would also publish part of October’s jobs report then, too.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the minutes, the board agreed to stop the reduction of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities in December. This has taken $2.5 trillion off the balance sheet, which is still around $6.6 trillion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

upi<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Nov. 19 (UPI) — Federal Reserve officials disagreed over whether the central bank should lower interest rates at its December meeting after approving back-to-back reductions, according to minutes from the October meeting. Quarter-point changes from eacvh of the last two meetings have lowered them to a range of 3.7% to 4%. The last change was Dec. 18, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":6,"featured_media":50117,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1155],"tags":[2074,3672,35346],"class_list":["post-50116","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-business","tag-economy","tag-federal-reserve","tag-interest-rate-cut"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50116","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/6"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=50116"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50116\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":50118,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/50116\/revisions\/50118"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/50117"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=50116"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=50116"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ustower.net\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=50116"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}