WASHINGTON (AP) – It’s all about the data.
For months, the Federal Reserve has said that once economic data showed a consistently healthy economy, it would be time to resume raising interest rates. And for almost as long, the data has shown improvement and suggested that a rate hike was likely this summer.
That was then.
This month, when the government issued a surprisingly bleak hiring report for May, it suddenly raised doubts about the health of the job market. And it caused most Fed-watchers to put off their predictions for the next Fed rate hike into the fall.
So when the Fed issues a statement after a policy meeting ends Wednesday and Chair Janet Yellen holds a news conference, a wait-and-see tone is expected. The Fed will likely echo the message Yellen sent in a speech last week: That while the U.S. economy looks fundamentally solid and higher rates will come eventually, too many uncertainties exist to say when the Fed might raise rates again.