The Federal Reserve United States (fed) is inclined to raise interest rates more aggressively than has been the case up to now, with increases of half a percentage point to fight runaway inflation.
The minutes of the last meeting of the organization, published this Wednesday, reveal that the majority of the directors of the central bank indicated that “one or more” half-point hikes might be “appropriate”.
These minutes correspond to the meeting that the fed held on March 15 and 16, at the end of which it announced the first rise in interest rates since 2018, in a shift towards a contractionary monetary policy to try to contain the rise in prices.
On that occasion, the central bank The US government raised the official interest rate by 0.25 percentage points, which placed it in a range of between 0.25% and 0.5%, after two years anchored at levels close to 0 to try to alleviate the effects on the economics of the covid-19 pandemic.
The minutes, however, point to the possibility that at the next meeting of the body, on May 3 and 4, the rate hike will not be 0.25 points again, but will already stand at half a point .
The Consumer Price Index in United States (IPC, what the final consumer pays) soared in February to 7.9% -four tenths above that of January-, which represents the highest record of consumer prices in this country since the beginning of 1982.
