FOMC holds at 3½–3¾ percent over three dissents seeking a hike

The Federal Open Market Committee voted on 29 July 2026 to maintain the target range for the federal funds rate at 3½ to 3¾ percent, approving its post-meeting statement by a 9-3 vote; Beth M. Hammack, Neel Kashkari and Lorie K. Logan dissented, each preferring “to raise the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/4 percentage point at this meeting.”¹ The statement reported economic activity “expanding at a solid pace despite elevated uncertainty that owes, in part, to the conflict in the Middle East,” and inflation “elevated relative to the Committee’s 2 percent goal, in part reflecting supply shocks that have driven price increases in certain sectors, including energy,” closing on the sentence “The Committee will deliver price stability.”¹ The dissents are the first of Chair Kevin M. Warsh’s tenure: the Committee’s June statement under the same short format was approved without dissent (see FOMC June meeting: Warsh’s first as Chair).¹²

1. The three dissenting votes all came from Federal Reserve Bank presidents in the Committee’s 2026 voting rotation — Hammack (Cleveland), Kashkari (Minneapolis) and Logan (Dallas) — and all ran in the tightening direction, against a hold. Under the Federal Reserve Act’s § 12A structure the Committee seats the seven governors, the New York Reserve Bank president and four rotating Reserve Bank presidents, so a unified Board majority prevails over a unanimous bloc of rotating presidents.¹³

2. The dissents’ direction runs opposite the preference for lower interest rates the administration voiced repeatedly during the Warsh confirmation process, per the confirmation-era record; the hawkish minority pressed for tightening while the statement attributes the inflation overshoot in part to supply shocks from the Middle East conflict — a source of price pressure the federal funds rate does not reach directly (see Two weeks after ceasefire collapse, Houthis embargo Saudi-bound shipping).¹⁴

3. The policy language barely moved while the vote fractured: the June statement — approved 12-0 — carried the same activity, inflation and “The Committee will deliver price stability” sentences nearly verbatim, with July’s changes limited to the vote line and “continuing” in place of “reaffirmed” on the ample-reserves policy; the divergence between an unchanged text and a 9-3 vote is the meeting’s news, landing as the five monetary-policy task forces Chair Warsh announced in June begin their work (see Fed monetary-policy task forces announced from June meeting).¹²⁵