The Federal Reserve from the United States (fed) announced this Wednesday a rise in the official interest rate of 0.75 points, the fifth increase since March and the third consecutive three-quarters of a point, in a new attempt to control inflation.
The US central bank met the expectations of economists and the official interest rate of the world’s largest economy now stands at a range of between 3% and 3.25%, the highest level in the last 14 years.
After a two-day meeting, members of the Federal Open Market Committee of the fed they made this decision, which will be justified in the next few minutes by the president of the Reserve, Jerome Powell, at a press conference.
Powell had already anticipated last July, when he announced the previous rise, that another “unusually large increase” in rates would possibly take place in September, a prediction that he has been reaffirming in his latest public speeches.
In various public events in recent weeks, he has insisted on the need for the fed continue with a monetary politics restrictive to lower prices and prevent citizens from getting used to high inflation, which in August stood at 8.3%.
“We must act now frankly, forcefully, as we have been doing, and we must continue to do so until the job is done,” he said in a recent talk.
This increase occurs a week after the latest inflation data was released, which showed that, although the year-on-year rate of the CPI fell two tenths in August, to 8.3%, in monthly terms prices rose one tenth compared to July.
Data that shows that, for the time being, the series of interest rate hikes that the fed been implementing since March is still not having the desired impact on prices.
