Federal Reserve officials at their April policy meeting said that they are unlikely to start raising short-term interest rates in June, The Wall Street Journal reported yesterday. Officials have been saying that they won’t begin lifting their benchmark federal funds rate from near zero until they see more improvement in the labor market and are confident that inflation will rise toward their 2 percent target. Several of them started the year thinking they might reach that point by midyear. But by last month, after watching the economy stumble through the winter, many at the meeting were doubtful those criteria for a rate increase would be met, according to minutes of the meeting released yesterday. Many officials “thought it [was] unlikely that the data available in June would provide sufficient confirmation that the conditions for raising the target range for the federal funds rate had been satisfied, although they generally did not rule out this possibility,” the minutes said. While the minutes suggest a rate increase isn’t completely off the table, only a few Fed officials thought they would have enough confidence to begin raising interest rates at the June 16-17 meeting. Market participants are increasingly looking toward September — or beyond — for a Fed rate increase.
