What the Fed may be weighing this week as it eyes short-term interest rates

Mitchell Hartman Dec 11, 2017
HTML EMBED:
COPY

What the Fed may be weighing this week as it eyes short-term interest rates

Mitchell Hartman Dec 11, 2017
HTML EMBED:
COPY

A big date on the economic calendar this week: the Federal Reserve’s Open Market Committee meeting Dec. 12 and 13. We’ll find out Wednesday whether it’s raising short-term interest rates again. An important piece of the economic puzzle landed on today with the November jobs report. It showed unemployment at a low 4.1 percent and middling wage growth — just 2.5 percent year-over-year. With a mandate to maximize employment and maintain price stability, those are important factors that the Fed will likely be looking at as it weighs whether to raise short-term interest rates. The last time it raised rates was in June 2017, by a quarter percentage point.

Click the audio player above to hear the full story. 

There’s a lot happening in the world.  Through it all, Marketplace is here for you. 

You rely on Marketplace to break down the world’s events and tell you how it affects you in a fact-based, approachable way. We rely on your financial support to keep making that possible. 

Your donation today powers the independent journalism that you rely on. For just $5/month, you can help sustain Marketplace so we can keep reporting on the things that matter to you.