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Investing.com - The Federal Reserve is not projected to slash interest rates this year, analysts at BofA Securities predicted, partly citing internal forecasts for a more gradual uptick in the U.S. unemployment rate in the months ahead.
Policymakers at the Fed have recently adopted a "wait-and-see" approach to future borrowing cost cuts, with the central bank keen to see how President Donald Trump’s aggressive tariff agenda impacts the wider economy.
At the Fed’s upcoming gathering next week, officials on the Federal Open Market Committee are widely anticipated to leave rates steady at a range of 4.25% to 4.5%. According to CME Group’s (NASDAQ:CME) closely-monitored FedWatch Tool, the Fed is not seen cutting until its September meeting, although markets are placing the odds of that at just over 50%.
One possible factor in the Fed’s outlook is the trajectory of the U.S. jobless rate, which the strategists led by Shruti Mishra argued is the one economic indicator that "trumps all others when it comes to gauging the health of the economy."
Given shocks to the supply of workers from White House immigration restrictions as well as hits to labor demand from tariff uncertainty and federal government spending drawdowns, the BofA analysts lowered their estimate for nonfarm payrolls to an average of about 50,000 in the second half -- a prior projection had called for 70,000.
In 2026, the figure is seen at 70,000, down from 75,000.
With these payroll numbers in mind, BofA sees the unemployment rate climbing by around a tenth per quarter for the next three quarters, reaching 4.4% in the final three-month of the 2025 calendar year. It is then anticipated to peak sometime in the first nine months of 2026 at 4.5% -- however, this is lower than an earlier estimates of 4.6%.
In June, the unemployment rate stood at 4.1%, cooler than 4.2% in May and below economists’ expectations.
At the same time, recent data has suggested that the price of some consumer goods exposed to tariffs may be rising, adding to overall inflation. Fed Chair Jerome Powell, who has been the recipient of criticism from Trump for not immediately bringing down rates, has said inflation is expected to further quicken this summer.
Against this backdrop, the BofA analysts said in a note to clients that the Fed has "no compelling case" to reduce rates this year.
"With the unemployment rate rising even more gradually in our new forecasts and core [personal consumption expenditures (PCE) price] inflation likely to reach 3% over the summer, we don’t think the Fed will be able to cut rates this year," they wrote. The Fed uses the core PCE index to help gauge inflationary pressures.