
With inflation easing and the U.S. economy cooling, is the Federal Reserve done raising interest rates? After all, gently bringing down the trajectory of prices without crashing the economy was the central bank’s objective when it began jacking up rates over a year ago.
Gross domestic product, the broadest measure of an economy’s output, expanded at an annual pace of a mere 1.1% in the first quarter, according to data released April 27, 2023 – down from 2.6% recorded in the final three months of 2022. And the latest consumer price data, from March, shows inflation slowing to 5% on an annualized basis, the least in about a year.