Overview
- Divided Fed officials at their January meeting indicated that further interest rate cuts should be paused for now and could resume later in the year only if inflation cooperates, minutes released Wednesday showed.
- Some officials even entertained the notion that rate hikes could be on the table and wanted the post-meeting statement to more closely reflect “a two-sided description of the Committee’s future interest rate decisions.”
Divided Federal Reserve officials at their January meeting indicated that further interest rate cuts should be paused for now and could resume later in the year only if inflation cooperates.
While the decision to hold the central bank’s benchmark rate steady mostly was met with approval, the path ahead appeared less certain, with members conflicted between fighting inflation and supporting the labor market, according to minutes released Wednesday from the Jan. 27-28 Federal Open Market Committee meeting.
Source: https://www.cnbc.com/2026/02/18/fed-minutes-january-2026.html