Fed Meeting Today, Powell May Hold Final Press Conference as Chair

The Fed’s decision today will ripple far beyond Wall Street: if Jerome Powell and his colleagues keep rates unchanged, mortgage borrowers, credit-card holders and car shoppers are likely to face still-elevated financing costs for months, while employers will keep watching whether the central bank sees inflation or slowing growth as the bigger risk.

The Federal Open Market Committee met April 28-29, with its policy announcement set for 2:00 p.m. Eastern and Powell’s press conference at 2:30 p.m. Eastern. The timing gives the central bank one more chance to shape expectations before Powell’s term as Fed chair ends on May 15, 2026. His term on the Board runs through January 31, 2028, but this meeting may still stand out as his last press conference as chair.

Markets entered the day expecting another pause. Reuters reported that officials were likely to hold rates steady while debating whether to emphasize rising inflation risks in the statement, with energy prices elevated because of the U.S.-led war with Iran. Other market previews put the benchmark target range at 3.50% to 3.75%, which would make this a third straight hold after the Fed left rates unchanged at its January and March meetings.

The last policy statement, issued March 18 after the Fed’s March 17-18 meeting, described the economy as expanding at a solid pace. It said job gains had remained low, unemployment had been little changed in recent months, and inflation remained somewhat elevated. The Board also said the interest rate paid on reserve balances would stay at 3.65 percent, effective March 19. Taken together, those signals suggested officials were still more concerned about sticky prices than about an immediate need to cushion the labor market.

That tension is the core question for today. If Powell stresses inflation, borrowers should expect little relief soon on mortgages, credit cards and auto loans, since the Fed would be signaling that price pressures still justify restraint. If he sounds more alert to slower growth, it would open the door to cuts later in 2026, but any shift would come against a backdrop of still-elevated energy costs and a labor market that the Fed has already described as cooling but stable.

The April 8 release of minutes from the March meeting offered another window into how officials are balancing those risks ahead of today’s decision. With eight regularly scheduled meetings a year, the Fed has more chances to move, but Powell’s remarks today may carry unusual weight because the next scheduled meeting comes after his chair term ends. For households and businesses, the message will be less about the immediate rate vote than about whether the Fed still sees inflation as the main threat to the economy.