U.S. Fed to Cut Rate Decisions to Seven in 2027 as Warsh Enters His Second Year as Chair

The FOMC will continue to meet eight times a year.

The U.S. Federal Reserve (Fed), led by Chair Kevin Warsh, has decided to reduce the number of interest rate decisions it makes next year from eight to seven. The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) will continue to meet eight times a year, but one meeting will be devoted to discussing its long-term monetary policy strategy.

U.S. Federal Reserve Chair Kevin Warsh speaks at a press conference at the Fed headquarters in Washington, D.C., on September 16, 2026 (local time). AP-Yonhap News Agency

According to the Fed's provisional schedule for 2027 FOMC meetings, released on November 12 (local time), the October meeting next year will not include a vote on interest rates or the release of a monetary policy statement. Instead, the committee will focus on discussing the long-term direction of monetary policy to achieve the Fed's dual mandate of price stability and maximum employment.

Accordingly, interest rate decision meetings next year will be held in January, March, April, June, July, September, October and November, for a total of eight meetings. The meeting usually held in December has been moved up to November 16-17.

Since taking office this year, Chair Warsh has been considering ways to reduce the number of FOMC meetings. The aim is to separate meetings on monetary policy decisions from discussions of long-term policy strategy. Last month, however, he concluded that holding eight meetings a year was appropriate and decided to keep the total number of meetings unchanged while converting one of them into a strategy meeting.

The Fed plans to continue this restructuring in 2028. Chair Warsh said that in 2028, the Fed plans to increase the number of strategy meetings to two out of its eight annual meetings and reduce the number of interest rate decision meetings to six. If the plan proceeds as intended, the Fed will make two fewer interest rate decisions a year over the next two years than it has in the past.

The schedule change formalizes the plan Chair Warsh outlined at a press conference after the FOMC meeting on October 28. At the time, he said that, just as it was important to regularly assess short-term economic conditions, it was also important to make the time and space to discuss the broad direction of monetary policy from a long-term perspective.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.