(Reuters) – U.S. economic activity was little changed overall in recent weeks, and with growth in hiring and in prices slowing, the outlook appeared to worsen, a Federal Reserve report published on Wednesday showed.
“Expectations for future growth deteriorated a little, though contacts still largely expected a further expansion in activity,” the U.S. central bank said in its latest “Beige Book” compendium of surveys and interviews, conducted across its 12 districts through May 22. Contacts across districts noted that while labor markets remained strong, they had “cooled some.”
Many districts reported that the pace of inflation had slowed, and “contacts in most Districts expected a similar pace of price increases in the coming months.”
Fed policymakers early this month increased the benchmark short-term interest rate a 10th straight time, taking it to a range of 5.00%-5.25%, and signaled they were near or possibly at the end of a rate-hike campaign that began last March.
Since that early-May meeting, economic data has generally come in stronger than expected, with the unemployment rate at a decades-low 3.4% and inflation by the Fed’s preferred gauge at 4.4%, more than twice the Fed’s target.
But many Fed policymakers since then have signaled they may rather wait before undertaking any further policy tightening. While inflation is still too high, they say, the full impact of the Fed’s rate hikes so far is still making its way through the economy, and the degree of credit tightening from bank failures in March remains difficult to gauge.
The Fed’s snapshot of business, bank and worker conditions published Wednesday also said financial conditions “were stable or somewhat tighter” in most of the country.
Fed policymakers have said credit conditions are a key input to their calculations for monetary policy-setting.
Overall, bank sector stress appears to have receded in the months since the March collapse of Silicon Valley Bank and Signature Bank, despite the failure of an additional regional bank – First Republic – on May 1.
U.S. lawmakers look on course to approve a deal struck over the weekend that raises the debt ceiling and averts a catastrophic default on U.S. Treasuries.
(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Andrea Ricci)
