WASHINGTON — The Federal Open Market Committee agreed to leave forward guidance on monetary policy alone for another month, but members expressed the possibility of further action if the economic recovery continues to expand at a slower-than-projected pace, according to the minutes of its June 19 meeting, released Wednesday.
"Almost all members again agreed to indicate that the Committee expects to maintain a highly accommodative stance for monetary policy" through late 2014, according to the minutes, but "A few members expressed the view that further policy stimulus likely would be necessary to promote satisfactory growth in employment and to ensure that the inflation rate would be at the Committee's goal."
Other members noted that additional policy action could be warranted "if the economic recovery were to lose momentum, if the downside risks to the forecast became sufficiently pronounced, or if inflation seemed likely to run persistently below the Committee's longer-run objective."
Members felt the economic recovery was continuing at a modest pace, but agreed that "a variety of indicators showed smaller gains than had been anticipated." Employment growth, in particular, appeared to slow since the Committee's previous meeting, the minutes state.
"Most participants saw the incoming information as indicating somewhat slower growth in total demand, output, and employment over coming quarters than they had projected in April, and most carried forward some of that downward revision to their projections of medium-term growth," the minutes state. "However, some participants judged that the recent weakness in a variety of economic indicators was more likely to prove transitory, and thought that the outlook beyond this year was essentially unchanged."
