By Ann Saphir
WASHINGTON (Reuters) -U.S. central bankers expect to cut short-term interest rates by another half of a percentage point this year after delivering a quarter-point cut on Wednesday, based on the median of fresh projections.
But the Fed’s latest quarterly summary of economic projections showed wide disagreement inside the central bank.
The median expectation for another 50 basis points of rate cuts was more than they had thought three months ago when the labor market looked stronger and before President Donald Trump had named a new Fed Board member supportive of rate cuts.
The Fed’s decision on Wednesday drew a single dissent from the Fed’s newest governor Stephen Miran, Trump’s economic advisor.
The Fed’s so-called “dot plot” of policy rate expectations does not say which policymaker made which forecast.
But it indicated that one of the 19 – likely a nonvoting Fed bank president – may have felt that even Wednesday’s modest cut was inappropriate. The highest “dot” indicated a preference for a 4.4% policy rate at the end of this year, above the Fed’s post-meeting policy rate range of 4.00%-4.25%.
At the other end of the spectrum, one policymaker – likely Miran, who had wanted a half-point cut at Wednesday’s meeting – wrote down a year-end policy rate of 2.9%.
Trump has called all year for the Fed to slash rates. After Fed Governor Adriana Kugler, not a proponent of rate cuts, unexpectedly resigned last month, he moved quickly to install Miran, who was sworn in just before the Fed’s meeting started on Tuesday.
Also in August Trump announced the unprecedented firing of another Fed Governor, Lisa Cook, whom he accused of mortgage misrepresentation; Cook is fighting the removal in court and so far remains in her job.
The moves have sparked speculation that the Fed could go too far with cutting rates and unleash fresh inflationary pressures if policymakers believe their jobs are at risk for not going along with Trump’s wishes.
The projections showed that six policymakers penciled in no further rate cuts this year, two felt that just one more quarter-point rate cut would be needed, and nine policymakers landed on the median of two more quarter-point rate cuts by year’s end.
Since the Fed’s last projections in June a dramatic decline in monthly jobs gains, a tick upward in the unemployment rate to 4.3%, and few signs of broad-based price pressures from Trump’s tariffs convinced most policymakers to back policy easing, even as concerns about inflation left some more hesitant.
“There are really valid arguments on both sides,” Natixis’ economist Christopher Hodge said before the meeting, where he expected dissents. “We shouldn’t jump to the conclusion that this is political,” he said, even as he added, “we can’t ignore it either.”
The median policymaker view for each of the next two years calls for further quarter-of-a-percentage point cuts each year. Forecasts for the policy rate at the end of next year ranged from 2.6% to 3.9%.
Meanwhile the median forecast is for a 4.5% unemployment rate by December and for a 4.4% rate at the end of next year.
Inflation by the Fed’s targeted metric – the 12-month change in the Personal Consumption Expenditures price index – is now expected to end this year at 3.0%, the same as projected in June, before dropping to 2.6% next year.
Policymakers forecast core PCE inflation, which they use to gauge future inflation, to end this year at 3.1% and 2.6% next year.
The Fed targets 2% inflation.
(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
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