The Federal Reserve is expected to announce its second rate cut of the year on Oct. 29, despite a lack of clarity over the health of the U.S. economy due to the ongoing government shutdown.
The U.S. central bank's second-to-last rate meeting of the year is taking place against the backdrop of a weeks-long standoff between Republicans and Democrats over healthcare subsidies, resulting in the ceased publication of almost all official data.
Without these key insights into the U.S. economy, Fed officials will be forced to set interest rates without the full spectrum of data they normally rely upon.
Analysts and traders expect the bank will plough ahead with a quarter percentage-point cut, lowering its key lending rate to between 3.75 percent and 4 percent, without giving too much away about the final rate cut of the year in December.
The lack of official information complicates the ongoing debate at the Fed over whether to cut rates swiftly in order to support the weakening labor market, or to stand firm in the face of inflation which remains stuck stubbornly above the bank's long-term target of 2 percent, fueled by Donald Trump's sweeping tariffs on top trading partners.
The U.S. central bank has a dual mandate from Congress to act independently to tackle both inflation and unemployment, which it does by raising, holding, or cutting its benchmark lending rate.
"They'll have to decide how much [inflation] is still to come versus how much is just never going to come, and that's the big question right now," former Fed official Joseph Gagnon told AFP.
The argument has been that "the strength and inflation is only temporary...but the the weakness of unemployment might be more long lasting," he said.
"In my view, that argument is going to continue to hold sway this month, because the data are still in that direction," added Gagnon, who is a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics (PIIE).
The only major data point to be published since the shutdown began on Oct. 1 was the consumer inflation data, which came in hot at 3 percent in the 12 months to September, according to delayed Labor Department data published on Oct. 24.
But the figure came in slightly below expectations, cheering the financial markets, which closed at fresh records on the news.
On the other side of the mandate, employment has slowed sharply in recent months, with just 22,000 jobs created in August, even as the unemployment rate hugged close to historic lows at 4.3 percent.
"The goal is to get it just right, and that's a hard thing to do with such a blunt tool," KPMG chief economist Diane Swonk told AFP, referring to the Fed's key interest rate.
Swonk expects the Fed to cut twice more this year.
The Fed has been rocked this year by relentless attacks on personnel directed from the White House, with Trump often taking to his Truth Social network to criticize Fed chair Jerome Powell, who steps down next year.
