A Summary Of The Fed's Outlook On The US Economy

This paragraph summarizes the outlook at the Fed.  They see mediocre economic growth and an improving unemployment picture.  However, there has not been enough wage growth to raise concerns about inflation.  The Fed is still below its 2% inflation target.

Bottom Line: The US economy is plain vanilla. Clearly not accelerating enough to justify a faster pace of monetary policy normalization, but not slow enough for the Fed to abandon their hope of at least initiating the first rate hike this year. They are still looking for stronger numbers, however, to pull that trigger. Fed officials on average are cautiously optimistic the issues in China and Greece will not spill over to the US economy, giving them the opportunity to hike rates. Still, in the absence of confirmation of that hypothesis, those issues still decrease the odds of a rate hike this year. This is especially the case if the recent decline in commodity price places renewed downward pressure on inflation. Such an outcome would raise the bar on the strength of the remaining data to justify a rate hike. In her speech Friday, we will hopefully learn more of Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen's view on the importance of Greece and China for US monetary policy.