The Federal Open Market Committee voted 10-2 to keep its benchmark rate at 3.75% to 4%. Cook was joined by Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack, both “who 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 vote came with two firsts: it was Cook’s first dissent since she joined the board in 2022. And it was also the first time a Fed governor and a regional bank president dissented on the same side since October 1992. Then, Governor Lawrence Lindsey and Cleveland Fed President Jerry Jordan both wanted the Fed to cut rates right away, while Governor John LaWare and St. Louis Fed President Thomas Melzer dissented together on the other side.
Fed records show how rare the pairing has become since then. In 1993, governors Wayne Angell and Lindsey twice dissented together in favor of higher rates, but no president joined them. When Philadelphia Fed President Edward Boehne dissented alongside Angell that May, he objected from the opposite direction. LaWare dissented alone in December 1994, when he wanted an immediate hike.
Dissenting more, but separately
But after that stretch, governors largely stopped dissenting. Mark Olson broke ranks alone in 2005, and Michelle Bowman did the same in 2024.
Since then, governors and presidents have dissented at the same meeting, but on opposite sides. In October 2025, Governor Stephen Miran pushed for a bigger cut as 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, since she had heard Hammack lay out her views at a conference in Cleveland two weeks earlier. “The Lisa Cook dissent was more surprising,” Ullrich told Fortune.
“Monetary medicine”
The Fed kept its view that “inflation remains elevated.”
At a press conference after the decision, Fed Chair Kevin Warsh said the committee chose to wait and see. “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.”
“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.
“It’s a waiting game,” said Ullrich, who believes a hike is likely soon. “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.”
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.
That inflation has gone up and the rate has not is difficult to square. “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.”
Ullrich said inflation expectations 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.
The decision came less than a week before the midterms, but that shouldn’t be considered rhyme or reason. “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,” noted Fed whisper and watcher Ullrich 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 is driven by 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.”
The Fed also upgraded its view of the economy, saying activity is “expanding at a strong pace,” up from “solid” in September. Ullrich said Indeed’s job postings index turned positive year over year in mid-September for the first time in four years, but “we clearly are still in the low hire, low fire environment.”
“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.”
