WASHINGTON–The Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee will begin its two-day policy meeting today, with most forecasters still predicting it will move to increase rates.
There had been some speculation that an unexpected slowdown in the pace of job creation that was reported for May could cause the Fed to hesitate, but other numbers and overall economic performance are generally believed to be strong enough that the Fed will push rates up approximately 25 basis points.
There had been widespread expectations in the first quarter of 2017 that the FOMC would increase rates four times this year, giving credit unions and other financial institutions their first rising rate environment in a decade, but some economists over the past month have dialed back their expectations for rate increases later in 2017.
"Despite the poor May returns, the Fed's view of the labor market remains strong enough to support a quarter-point rate hike later this month,” said NAFCU’s chief economist, Curt Long, during May. “But the slowing pace of job growth combined with still-muted wage growth may lead some officials to downgrade their expectations for further policy tightening in the second half of the year.”
CUToday.info will have full coverage of the Fed meeting.