A joint meeting of the Federal Open Market Committee and the Board of Governors was held in the offices of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System in Washington, D.C., on Tuesday, September 19, 2017, at 1:00 p.m. and continued on Wednesday, September 20, 2017, at 9:00 a.m.1 PRESENT: Janet L. Yellen, Chair William C. Dudley, Vice Chairman Lael Brainard Charles L. Evans Stanley Fischer Patrick Harker Robert S. Kaplan Neel Kashkari Jerome H. Powell Raphael W. Bostic, Loretta J. Mester, Mark L. Mullinix, and John C. Williams, Alternate Members of the Federal Open Market Committee James Bullard, Esther L. ... (full story)

Federal Reserve officials held a detailed debate last month over whether forces holding inflation down were persistent or temporary, with several policy makers looking for stronger evidence of price gains before supporting a third interest-rate hike this year. “Many participants expressed concern that the low inflation readings this year might reflect not only transitory factors, but also the influence of developments that could prove more persistent,” according to minutes of the Sept. 19-20 meeting, released Wednesday in Washington. Several policy makers said their decision on whether to raise rates this year “would ... (full story)