Sarah Foster

Only two Fed officials expect that interest rates will stay in their current target range of 5.25-5.5 percent by the time 2024 comes to a close.

Working with less can keep women from saving, investing and growing wealth.

Some Fed officials are starting to rethink just how much they can cut rates.

Key takeaways The Federal Reserve has most likely completed its most aggressive rate-hiking campaign in four decades, bringing interest rates to a 23-year high of 5.25-5.5 percent after 11 rate hikes.

— until the end of 2026, Bankrate's quarterly economists' poll found. The forecast suggests U.S. central bankers won't be ready to fully let up the brakes and give the U.S. economy more gas for more than two years, fearing that it could reheat inflation.

Economists in Bankrate's quarterly poll are divided on how soon inflation will hit the Fed's ultimate goal of 2 percent. The largest share (35 percent) say inflation could reach that target by the end of 2024, but those odds were only slightly higher than the percentage of economists who expect 2 percent inflation by the end of 2025 (29 percent) or the end of 2026 (29 percent).

The odds of the U.S. economy entering a recession within the next 12 months have now fallen to a two-year low of 33 percent, according to Bankrate's latest quarterly economists' poll. That's after soaring as high as 65 percent back in the third quarter of 2022 and falling to about a coin-flip by the final six months of 2023.

The job market has outperformed economists' expectations for five straight quarters, but the nation's top economists continue to expect a hiring slowdown, according to Bankrate's latest quarterly economists' poll. Experts are penciling in a 4.2 percent unemployment rate by the end of March 2025, up from its current 3.9 percent level, according to the average forecast. They're also still projecting that employers will scale back on hiring. Between now and March 2025, job growth is expected to average 117,000 a month — half as fast as the previous 12 months.

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) announced at its May rate gathering that it plans to shrink its $7.4 trillion balance sheet at a slower pace.

When the Federal Reserve announced that it would keep interest rates at a 23-year high after its May gathering, another consequential policy decision for consumers may have flown under the radar.