Fed Holds Rates at 3.75%-4%, and Two Dissent Together for First Time Since 1992

The Federal Reserve voted 10-2 on Wednesday to hold its benchmark rate at 3.75% to 4%, and for the first time since October 1992, a Fed governor and a regional bank president dissented on the same side of a decision.

Governor Lisa Cook — the board member President Donald Trump has tried to fire — and Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack both "preferred to raise the target range for the federal funds rate by 1/4 percentage point at this meeting," the Fed said in its statement. The decision landed six days before the midterm elections.

What was historic about the vote?

Two firsts came out of the meeting. It was Cook's first dissent since she joined the board in 2022. And it was the first governor-president pairing on the same side of a dissent in 34 years, since Governor Lawrence Lindsey and Cleveland Fed President Jerry Jordan both pushed for immediate rate cuts in October 1992.

The historical record shows how rare the alignment has become. Back then, Governor John LaWare and St. Louis Fed President Thomas Melzer dissented together on the opposite side of that same vote.

In 1993, governors Wayne Angell and Lindsey twice dissented together in favor of higher rates, but no regional bank president joined them. When Philadelphia Fed President Edward Boehne dissented alongside Angell in May 1993, he objected from the opposite direction. LaWare dissented alone in December 1994, pushing for an immediate hike.

After that stretch, governors largely stopped dissenting at all. Mark Olson broke ranks alone in 2005. Michelle Bowman did the same in 2024.

How have recent dissents lined up?

Since 2024, governors and presidents have dissented at the same meetings — but on opposite sides, never together.

• In October 2025, Governor Stephen Miran pushed for a bigger cut while Kansas City Fed President Jeff Schmid opposed cutting at all.
• In April, Miran wanted a cut while Hammack, Minneapolis Fed President Neel Kashkari and Dallas Fed President Lorie Logan objected to the statement's signal that cuts were coming.

"It's not that common to have one governor and one president that dissent," said Laura Ullrich, director of economic research for North America at the Indeed Hiring Lab, who worked at the Richmond Fed for years. Hammack's vote didn't surprise her — she had heard the Cleveland Fed president lay out her views at a conference in Cleveland two weeks earlier. "The Lisa Cook dissent was more surprising," Ullrich told Fortune.

What did Kevin Warsh say about the 'monetary medicine'?

The Fed kept its view that "inflation remains elevated." At his press conference after the decision, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said the committee chose to wait rather than act.

"What we decided to do was to call these questions, take stock of where we are, evaluate what we're seeing out the window, ask ourselves whether the period right in front of us is likely to provide more clarity," Warsh said.

"The overwhelming consensus is that what we've done in this monetary medicine is starting to work some, but there is no firm conclusions," he added.

The numbers make the wait harder to defend. Consumer prices rose 3.7% from a year earlier in September. Before Wednesday's decision, traders put the odds of a December hike at 78%, according to CME Group's FedWatch tool.

"Ultimately, the FOMC's vote to keep its target federal funds rate unchanged today (while widely expected) is a bit hard to square with its unconditional pledge to restore price stability that has repeatedly been made over the past five months," said Aubrey Woessner, associate economist in the Indeed Hiring Lab. "Whether the public believes the Fed will bring inflation down in a timely manner matters for everyone."

Is a December hike now likely?

Ullrich thinks so. "It's a waiting game," she said, adding that a hike is coming soon in her view. "Since the last meeting, none of the inflation data has gotten better. It's gotten worse," she said. "I think the probability of a hike in December is very, very high. It was already high in the market, so it'll probably go even higher after today's decision."

Ullrich also flagged inflation expectations, which she said have been creeping up — though it's "pretty incredible" they have stayed as anchored as they have. "If inflation expectations go up, the literature shows that inflation follows," she said.

Did the midterms matter?

The decision came less than a week before the midterm elections, but Ullrich cautioned against reading political timing into it. "There have been years when they've hiked right before a midterm. There are years they've cut right before midterms. There are years they've held stable right before a midterm," she said. "I wouldn't read too much into that. I know it's very easy to read into it."

Having worked inside the Fed, she said the run-up to each meeting runs on data. "They're looking at a whole lot of data points," she said. "Do the midterms factor in as one of those points? Maybe at some level, but I personally don't read too much into that."

What does the Fed see in the economy?

The Fed upgraded its economic assessment, saying activity is "expanding at a strong pace," up from "solid" in September.

The labor market tells a more muted story. Ullrich said Indeed's job postings index turned positive year over year in mid-September for the first time in four years — but the underlying conditions haven't shifted. "We clearly are still in the low hire, low fire environment," she said.

With two officials now on record wanting higher rates, inflation accelerating to 3.7%, and markets pricing a 78% chance of a December hike before the vote even happened, the Fed's next meeting looks like the real decision point.