Fed keeps interest rates flat for now

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell on Wednesday said the Fed would maintain its key interest rates at roughly 5.5 percent. The Federal Reserve has raised interest rates 11 times since March 2022. The annualized rate of inflation meanwhile has dropped from more than 9 percent last June to less than 4 percent as of last month.

What happens next with interest rates? Central bank officials said they will likely hike the interest rates only once more this year. The Fed noted that job gains have slowed in recent months and that unemployment has remained low, but it said it does not yet know what the effects of higher interest rates will be. It plans to cut interest rates at least twice next year.

Dig deeper: Listen to Nick Eicher’s discussion with David Bahnsen on The World and Everything in It podcast about inflation numbers from last month.