Fed

FOMC Meeting Minutes — April 28-29, 2026

Released May 20, 2026 · 2:00 PM ET · Source: Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System

The minutes from the April 28-29 FOMC meeting show a Committee that held the federal funds rate at 3.50–3.75% and removed the easing bias present in prior communications. The vote was not unanimous: one member dissented in favor of a cut, and three members objected to dropping the more two-sided forward-guidance language.

What's real

The target range stayed at 3.50–3.75%. The balance-sheet directive was unchanged.

On inflation, the qualifier language is worth quoting: "The vast majority of participants noted an increased risk that inflation would take longer to return to the Committee's 2 percent objective than they had previously expected." "Most participants" reported long-run expectations remained stable; "several participants" cited Middle East commodity disruption as fresh pass-through risk.

On labor, "most participants" judged the data suggested stabilization, while "a few participants" read soft job growth as fragility. "Most participants" assessed employment-side risks as tilted to the downside.

"A majority of participants" noted some policy firming would likely become appropriate if inflation continued to run persistently above 2% — language that signals removal of an easing bias rather than addition of a tightening bias.

What's noise

The minutes describe a meeting three weeks old. The April CPI, PPI, retail sales, and weekly claims have all arrived since. A reader looking to the minutes for a current read on the path is looking at the wrong document.

The three-member objection to forward-guidance language is a disagreement about communication, not three votes against the rate decision. Only one member voted against the rate action.

What it means

The dispersion among participants is the document's most signal-rich feature: "vast majority," "most participants," "a majority," "several," and "a few" are not interchangeable. Each carries a different count of the room.

The minutes do not tell us what the Committee will do next. They tell us where deliberation stood three weeks ago: less willing to signal cuts, more willing to signal patience.

The bias shifted. The rate did not.