The persistence of slow inflation was the dominant topic at the Federal Reserve’s most recent policy-making meeting in September, but most officials said they were still inclined to raise the Fed’s benchmark interest rate later this year, the New York Times reported yesterday. The Fed is likely to raise rates so long as the medium-term economic outlook remains unchanged, according to an official account of the meeting that the Fed published yesterday. The account said that recent hurricanes had not disrupted that outlook. The Fed expects slower growth for a few months, but it does not expect a long-term effect. The Fed next meets Oct. 31 and Nov. 1, but investors expect the Fed will wait to raise its benchmark rate at its final meeting of the year, in December. The Fed said after the September meeting that it would begin to reduce its holdings of Treasury securities and mortgage-backed securities, which it accumulated beginning in 2008 as part of the effort to reduce borrowing costs for businesses and consumers. But the minutes of the September meeting said that “a few” Fed officials opposed another 2017 rate move, and that “several others” remained on the fence.
