The Federal Open Market Committee voted at today’s monetary policy meeting to increase the Fed Funds target rate from a range of 0.75%-1.00% to 1.00%-1.25%. There was one dissenting voter, Neel Kashkari, who favored leaving rates unchanged.
Some FOMC members revised their economic forecasts from March, but the median projected long-run Federal Funds rate was unchanged at 3.0%.
In recent years the Fed has typically overestimated economic growth and price inflation in its forecasts.
Financial conditions remain loose and are not a present deterrent to the Fed’s targeted policy path.
The M2 money supply remains fairly stable with year over year growth around 6.0%.
The Fed has stated that it intends to begin implementing a balance sheet normalization program later this year, an effort to reduce it’s current holdings of approximately $4.5 trillion.
The FOMC will make its next policy announcement on July 26, 2017.