A new month begins with a familiar figure getting a lot of attention from economic policymakers, investors and businesses.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will speak at a panel at Stanford University on Monday, nine days out from the central bank’s last meeting of 2025. The December meeting has become a pivotal one with various Fed members offering different views of late on whether another cut in interest rates is desirable.
The Fed lowered interest rates by a quarter point at both its September and October meetings, but Powell said after the last one a December cut was not a foregone conclusion. Two of the 12 voting members of the monetary policy committee dissented, with one wanting a larger decrease and the other preferring no change.
There are legitimate arguments for a cut and against it. The labor market has softened, but whether it is weakening further remains unclear. The delayed September jobs data released on Nov. 20 showed an increase of 119,000 jobs, but that is now dated information.
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