Marketplace · Monday, September 14, 2026
Economist Wendy Edelberg discusses the Federal Reserve's upcoming meeting, suggesting that despite hawkish rhetoric, a rate hike might be avoided. She points to potentially revised inflation and employment data as reasons for the Fed to consider pausing.
“But my guess is that he would like to avoid a hike. I mean, he talked about, you know, my sense before he got the job is that he was talking about how he thought interest rates generally should be lower given, uh, structural things happening in the economy. Uh, he said he wanted tighter financial conditions and he's gotten them. So I think he could make an argument for markets having done the job that the Fed might have had to do and that they don't need to raise rates.”
“So the inflation story, I think looks better than some of the headlines suggest. Core CPI is basically at the rate consistent with target inflation. And the FOMC is going, you know, all of us in the economy, we're going to get data at the end of September, which I know Kevin Warsh knows about, uh, just because he must, because the staff is so good. They're going to get data at the end of September where PCE inflation, core PCE inflation, the measure that the Fed really cares about, it's going to get revised down by a few tens. That's within spitting distance of two.”
“And so there's going to be some folks at the FOMC who are worried about the weakening of the labor market. That's, you know, I'm not. But, uh, shock of all shocks, not everyone agrees with me. And so, uh, yeah, I think that there might be a labor market argument for standing pat as well.”