At their most recent meeting, Federal Reserve officials discussed scenarios in which an interest rate hike might be appropriate, according to minutes of it released Wednesday.
“Several” Fed officials thought there was a “possibility that upward adjustments” to interest rates “could be appropriate” if inflation continues to track above 2%, as it has for nearly five years.
The deliberations underscore how inflation remains a pressing concern for the central bank, even as public attention remains primarily on the labor market.
The minutes also suggest that the Fed’s internal conversations remain largely insulated from President Donald Trump’s monthslong pressure campaign to get the central bank to lower borrowing costs.
Trump’s multipronged attacks on the central bank and its chair, Jerome Powell, culminated late last year in subpoenas served to the Fed related to its headquarters renovation.
Nonetheless, there are few signs of the Fed moving rates in either direction anytime soon.
Fed policymakers voted to keep interest rates unchanged at their late January meeting, after cutting rates three times at the end of 2025.
The Fed is not expected to cut interest rates again until late summer, if it does at all this year.
The meeting minutes say that at the Jan. 27 and Jan. 28 meeting in Washington, most officials thought the risk of the labor market weakening further “had moderated in recent months while the risk of more persistent inflation remained, and some commented that those risks had come into better balance.”
The balance they are speaking of is the balance of maintaining a strong labor market while keeping a lid on inflation, preferably as close to the central bank’s 2% target as possible.
The Fed has been trying to steady that balance since the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020, and while inflation has come down significantly since then, it has been on a bumpy ride over the last year.
In April 2025, overall inflation fell to 2.3%, before rising as high as 3% in September.
On Friday, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported that overall inflation had fallen to 2.4% in January from 2.7% the month before.
At the same time, BLS reported that job growth in 2025 had been revised down sharply from 584,000 jobs to just 181,000. The news followed significant downward revisions for the year before.
BLS also reported last week that the economy added 130,000 jobs in January, more than expected, which economists viewed as the potential stabilization of recent weak hiring trends.
The unemployment rate ticked down only slightly to 4.3% from 4.4% in December.
With inflation showing no sign of hitting 2% just yet, members of the rate-setting Federal Open Market Committee, who are already splintered down political lines, could grow more divided.
But, they said, “further downward adjustments” to interest rates “would likely be appropriate if inflation were to decline in line with their expectations.”
“Some participants commented that it would likely be appropriate to hold the policy rate steady for some time as the Committee carefully assesses incoming data.”
In January, Trump said he planned to nominate Kevin Warsh to be the Fed’s next chair after Powell’s term ends in May.
Warsh has spoken favorably over the last year of lower interest rates, a position that is already generally supported by Trump’s three nominees already serving on the central bank’s boards.
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