Benchmark
U.S. Economic Misery Finds Company, Just Not In a Rate Hike
U.S. policy makers want to take confidence in jobs, inflation numbers before further tightening
What Jobs Number Could Trigger a Fed Rate Hike?
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The Federal Reserve is expected, sooner or later, to raise its key interest rate for a second time since the financial crisis — a feat not in sight for other major developed-nation central banks. It'll depend on if the economy is doing well, and policy makers may take comfort that the U.S. ranking has fallen in a gauge of economic misery.
With the unemployment rate at 4.9 percent and inflation at 0.8 percent, the U.S. Misery Index score of 5.7 has improved since the financial crisis, though it lags behind Switzerland, Japan, the U.K. and New Zealand. All these nations' central banks are poised to hold rates at record lows, or cut them further, according to surveys conducted by Bloomberg.