July 28–29 · Published August 19, 2015
Statement·Presser·Minutes
JYJanet L. YellenJuly 28–29, 2015 FOMC Minutes
Our reading
The minutes are consistent with the statement because both documents reflect the FOMC's shared assessment that, while economic activity and the labor market had shown moderate improvement and progress, the conditions for raising the federal funds rate—specifically, "some further improvement in the labor market" and "reasonable confidence" that inflation would return to 2 percent—had not yet been met, leading to the unanimous decision to maintain the 0 to 1/4 percent target range.
Our reading compares the minutes of the July 28–29 FOMC meeting with the FOMC statement issued at the end of that meeting, three weeks before the minutes were published.
Vote
- Lael Brainard
- William C. Dudley
- Charles L. Evans
- Stanley Fischer
- Jeffrey M. Lacker
- Dennis P. Lockhart
- Jerome H. Powell
- Daniel K. Tarullo
- John C. Williams
- Janet L. Yellen
From the minutes
FOMC minutes
The Committee is maintaining its existing policy of reinvesting principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in agency mortgage-backed securities and of rolling over maturing Treasury securities at auction. This policy, by keeping the Committee's holdings of longer-term securities at sizable levels, should help maintain accommodative financial conditions.
When the Committee decides to begin to remove policy accommodation, it will take a balanced approach consistent with its longer-run goals of maximum employment and inflation of 2 percent. The Committee currently anticipates that, even after employment and inflation are near mandate-consistent levels, economic conditions may, for some time, warrant keeping the target federal funds rate below levels the Committee views as normal in the longer run."
Voting for this action: Janet L. Yellen, William C. Dudley, Lael Brainard, Charles L. Evans, Stanley Fischer, Jeffrey M. Lacker, Dennis P. Lockhart, Jerome H. Powell, Daniel K. Tarullo, and John C. Williams.
Voting against this action: None.
What changed from the previous meeting’s minutes
- The minutes now describe labor market underutilization as diminished since early this year, not just over the intermeeting period.
- The statement changed to cite "solid job gains and declining unemployment" instead of "pace of job gains picked up while the unemployment rate remained steady."
- The FOMC's rate-hike condition shifted from "further improvement" to "some further improvement" in the labor market.
- Participants added discussion of bond market liquidity deterioration and leveraged loan underwriting migration to the nonbank sector.
- The minutes noted core CPI inflation had picked up over recent months, a development not mentioned previously.
- The statement's housing sector language upgraded from "some improvement" to "additional improvement."
Summary generated automatically from the two documents.