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Economy in Brief
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U.S. Current Account Deficit Deepens to Record in Q1'22
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Initial claims for unemployment insurance filed in the week ended June 18 declined by 2,000 to 229,000...
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Viewpoints
Commentaries are the opinions of the author and do not reflect the views of Haver Analytics.
by Tom Moeller January 27, 2021
The Federal Reserve left the target for the Fed funds rate in a range of 0.00% to 0.25% at today's meeting of the FOMC. The Fed continued to assert, "The COVID-19 pandemic is causing tremendous human and economic hardship across the United States and around the world."
The Fed stated, "The path of the economy will depend significantly on the course of the virus including progress on vaccinations. The ongoing public health crisis continues to weigh on economic activity, employment, and inflation, and poses considerable risks to the economic outlook."
The Fed continued to indicate that it will "increase its holdings of Treasury securities by at least $80 billion per month and of agency mortgage-backed securities by at least $40 billion per month until substantial further progress has been made toward the Committee's maximum employment and price stability goals."
Last month the Fed posted projections that the economy would grow 4.2% Q4/Q4 in 2021 after declining 2.4% last year, and that core PCE inflation would run 1.8% Q4/Q4 in 2021, up from 1.4% last year.
The statement issued following today's meeting can be found here.
Today's action was supported by all Committee members.
The Fed also issued earlier its 2020 Statement on Longer-Run Goals and Monetary Policy Strategy which is available here.
Current | Last | 2020 | 2019 | 2018 | 2017 | |
---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Federal Funds Rate Target | 0.0% - 0.25% | 0.0% - 0.25% | 0.38% | 2.17% | 1.82% | 1.00% |