The Fed is about to do something it hasn’t done since the pandemic

People are getting impatient with the Federal Reserve.

People are getting impatient with the Federal Reserve. For the past year, the Fed has kept interest rates at their highest level in more than two decades, making it more expensive to get a mortgage, borrow money and pay off debt. Now the central bank is mulling over when to do something it hasn’t done since the darkest days of the pandemic: cut interest rates. But Wednesday’s decision by the Fed to once again leave rates unchanged provided little comfort. But the wait could finally end at the Fed’s next policy meeting in September. “A rate cut could be on the table in the September meeting,” Fed Chair Jerome Powell said on Wednesday, immediately jolting markets. But some of that luster faded later in his press conference as he repeatedly told reporters that a September cut is by no means a sure shot. “The broad sense of the (Fed’s interest rate-setting) committee is that the economy is moving closer to the point at which it will be appropriate to reduce our policy rate.” In other words, we’re getting there but maybe not by September. The only thing you can be sure of is that it won’t happen before the Fed’s September 17-18 meeting. The Fed meets two other times this year — in November and December.