National Association of Federal Credit Unions (NAFCU) Chief Economist and Director of Research Curt Long issued the following statement today in response to the Federal Open Market Committee’s September meeting minutes.
“The minutes from the FOMC’s September meeting continue to show stark divisions among committee members. With three dissenting voters, there is clearly a faction that wants to commence with rate hikes immediately,” said Long. “Even within the group that voted to maintain rates where they are, there is apparently one segment which sees a rate hike as imminent, and another which prefers a more cautious approach. The former likely provided the impetus to add a sentence to the Fed’s release stating that the case for raising rates had strengthened. Another two months of decent performance from the labor market should be enough to prompt a rate hike in December.”