The FOMC’s Rate Hike Will Do More Harm Than Good

On the heels of the Federal Open Markets Committee (FOMC) announcement of an interest rate hike of 0.25 percentage points, government watchdog Acccountable.US condemns the institution’s decision to continue down its reckless path towards a potential recession.

A recent Accountable.US review found more and more prominent economic experts and lawmakers have come out against further interest rate hikes from the Federal Reserve – warning that further rate increases would do serious harm to the economy and lead to millions of layoffs while doing little to address inflation drivers like corporate profiteering.

“While the Fed continues to stick to their obsession with job-killing interest rate hikes, the livelihoods of working families are on the line,” said Liz Zelnick, Director of Accountable.Us’ Economic Security & Corporate Power Program. “Key indicators show inflation is slowing as our economic recovery remains fragile, which means the Fed’s higher rates are only pushing the economy closer to a recession. Meanwhile, Fed economists have admitted corporations are the real culprit of high costs yet have still refused to relax rate hikes. It’s time for the Fed to back down and let policymakers rein in corporate greed rather than risk it all on another rate increase.“

Even Fed officials have acknowledged higher interest rates will slow down economic growth and a study from Fed economists found corporate overcharging is what is really driving inflation. Recently, as employment rolls have expanded across the country, Fed officials have reportedly gone so far as to express “concern” that “labor markets are too tight.” The Fed’s priorities are truly out-of-touch to suggest too many Americans have jobs. The more Americans find work, the more the Fed embraces job-killing interest rate hikes that disproportionately hurt low-income workers and struggling mom and pop shops. With each new interest rate bump, the Fed is prioritizing demands from big banks, hedge funds and other Wall Street special interests at the great expense of average working families.