Consumers remain optimistic that the Federal Reserve will at last cut interest rates, rather than hike them, according to a WalletHub survey released on Monday.
Twenty-three percent of respondents believed the Fed will reduce the target interest rate at its June 19 meeting; 87 percent believe there will be a rate cut by its July 31 meeting; and 97 percent believe the Fed will cut interest rates by its September 18 meeting, according to the personal finance website.
The Federal Reserve has increased its target rate nine times since December 2015, without making any corresponding decreases.
Seventy percent of respondents said that the Fed knows how to grow the economy better than President Trump, who has been lobbying the Fed to cut interest rates, according to WalletHub.
Despite what the poll results say, whether or not the Fed will raise rates at their meeting this week is still a toss-up, WalletHub CEO Odysseas Papadimitriou said in a prepared statement.
“President Trump’s public statements have made it abundantly clear that he wants interest rates to go down, not up, because he wants to prolong the economic expansion through reelection,” Papadimitriou said. “However, Fed Chair Jerome Powell has also made it clear that he fully understands the independent authority of his office. It is hard to say which of those two opposing forces is winning out right now.”
WalletHub said it surveyed 1,086 people via Survey Monkey.