Fed officials saw need for rate hike if inflation doesn't cool, minutes show

The Federal Reserve on Wednesday released minutes from its July 28-29 policy meeting.

Fed officials saw need for rate hike if inflation doesn't cool, minutes show

TL;DR

  • Many Federal Reserve officials believed policy tightening would be necessary if inflation did not decline.
  • Some officials felt financial conditions were not sufficiently restrictive to lower inflation to the 2% target.
  • The Federal Open Market Committee voted 9-3 to keep the federal funds rate at 3.5%-3.75%.
  • Three regional presidents dissented, advocating for a quarter percentage point increase.
  • Discussions included potentially changing the FOMC meeting schedule from eight to six per year.
  • The board also discussed an intermeeting incident involving a disruption to transaction settlements.