Fed Leaves Key Interest Rate at 5.25 Percent After Long Stretch of Hikes

BY

The Federal Reserve on Tuesday left a key interest rate unchanged, marking at least a temporary pause in what had been the longest unbroken stretch of Fed rate increases in recent history.

The Fed's rate-setting committee voted 9 to 1 to leave the federal funds rate, the interest banks charge on overnight loans, at 5.25 percent. It was the first time the Fed had met and not raised rates in more than two years.
However, the relief for millions of business and consumer borrowers could be only temporary. The central bank said that "some inflation risks remains," holding out the possibility that it could resume raising rates at future meetings.

The Fed decision means that banks' prime lending rate, the benchmark for various consumer and business loans, will remain at 8.25 percent. Before the Fed started raising rates in June 2004, the prime had been at 4 percent, its lowest point since 1958.

In 17 consecutive meetings stretching from June 2004 through June 2006, the Fed boosted the funds rate from a 46-year low of 1 percent to the current 5.25 percent, all in an effort to slow the economy enough to keep inflation under control.

The Fed's decision to finally pause had been widely anticipated given the signs of a spreading economic slowdown, in part reflecting the impact of the Fed's long string of rate hikes.

Overall economic growth slowed in the spring to a rate of just 2.5 percent, less than half the pace of the first three months of the year, and on Friday the government reported that the unemployment rate in July rose from 4.6 percent to 4.8 percent.