Another rate cut before Fed enters uncertain territory with lingering inflation and Trump

WASHINGTON (TNND) — The Federal Reserve will make its next decision on what to do with its benchmark interest rate at its meeting later this week as it faces sticky inflation, a cooler labor market and vast uncertainty about the effects of the economic plans of the incoming Trump administration.

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Economists widely expect the Fed to move forward with a smaller 0.25% cut to its benchmark interest rate this week, and investors see it as a near-certainty. But what comes after this month’s anticipated cut remains a mystery that investors will hope to gain insight into during Powell’s post-meeting press conference and in the updated economic projections that will be released on Wednesday.

Fed chair Jerome Powell is expected to simmer hopes of the Fed maintaining the recent pace of rate cuts, a point that could be bolstered by the Fed’s projections. The forecasts, which give insight to how policymakers are thinking, are widely expected to include a slower path of rate cuts for 2025.

“Expectations of stubborn inflation amid an otherwise robust economy will boost the likelihood that interest rates stay higher for longer, either through an extended pause in rate cuts or a much slower, more deliberate pace in 2025,” Bankrate Chief Financial Analyst Greg McBride said.

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Powell has already started to dial back expectations for the speed at which the central bank will reduce its benchmark rate, noting that they “can afford to be a little more cautious” with the economy staying mostly on track during a speech earlier this month.

Inflation has been sticky throughout 2024 after rapid improvements from the highs of over 9% in 2022. Last week’s consumer price index showed inflation ticked up modestly in November to 2.7% compared to the year before, an increase from October’s figure of 2.6%. On a monthly basis, the 0.3% increase from October to November was the highest since April.

The Fed’s target is 2% on an annual basis and has been troublesome to get to. Higher interest rates are a tool for the central bank to cool the economy by making it more expensive for businesses and consumers to borrow money.

The other factor that could keep rates higher for longer is the generally robust pace the economy has kept up despite fears of a Fed-induced recession to crack down on inflation. The U.S. economy grew at a healthy rate of 2.8% in the third quarter and despite some bumps in the labor market, unemployment remains historically low.

With an otherwise healthy economy, some economists don’t see much of a reason to cut rates while prices remain elevated.

The risk the Fed runs by leaving rates elevated is damaging the economy through slower growth or increasing unemployment as businesses cut jobs or pull back on hiring. The first cut in September was prompted in part by a significant slowdown in hiring that officials wanted to make sure didn’t spiral.

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Economists and investors will be closely watching the Fed’s quarterly projections for next year and how they differ from the last set released in September. Back then, they forecast cutting rates four times in 2025, but economists believe it could be even fewer in the updated projections.

“The messaging that’s going to be sent to the market (Wednesday) afternoon is going to be very interesting. If the Fed is real conservative and throws out only a 50-basis point expectation full forecast of reduction next year, then that’s really going to be good for the dollar, it’s going to be good for bond yields, but it’s really going to hit the stock market. It’s also going to show that, ‘hey, the Feds got a lot more work to do to get rid of inflation,’” said Mark Williams, a finance lecturer at Boston University’s Questrom School of Business and former bank examiner at the Federal Reserve.

A slowdown in rate cuts would mean consumers and businesses will continue to be left to navigate higher rates for borrowing.

While inflation is the primary driver of the path of leaving rates higher for longer, the Fed is also dealing with the unknowns of a change in administration and plans from President-elect Donald Trump that have spurred concerns from economists about stoking inflation. Trump has promised to enact massive tariffs on foreign products, vowed to reduce taxes by trillions and hopes to pursue a massive deportation campaign that could drastically reduce the number of workers and put upward pressure on prices as a result.

“The Trump effect, even if we just isolate it to immigration and if he does half of what he is expected to do with immigration and reducing the flow, that’s going to have a dramatic impact on the cost of goods, and that’s going to have upward pressure on inflation, and then also, of course, the Fed’s interest rates,” Williams said.

Avoiding a “wage-price spiral,” where employers have to ramp up wages to compete for a smaller pool of workers, was a primary driver behind the Fed’s rapid increase of rates in 2023 when the economy was adding record levels of jobs and didn’t have enough people to fill them. The labor market has cooled considerably from the highs of the post-pandemic resurgence, but wages are still outpacing the rate of inflation and could be a trouble spot for the Fed if millions of people are suddenly removed from the labor force.