Fed Seen Adopting Qualitative Guidance as Job Market Gains

The Federal Reserve will probably discard its 6.5 percent jobless rate threshold while adopting qualitative guidance for signaling when it will consider raising the benchmark interest rate, economists said in a survey.

The Federal Open Market Committee tomorrow will say that it will link policy to a range of economic indicators, according to 76 percent of 54 economists in a March 14-17 Bloomberg News survey. Twenty percent of the economists surveyed said the Fed will maintain the threshold it adopted in December 2012, while 6 percent said it will drop such guidance entirely.