Policy- The Federal Reserve's recent interest-rate hikes may be affecting your wallet more than you think.
- The Fed funds rate influences mortgage, credit-card, and auto-loan rates.
The Fed has waged a war on inflation for over a year, and while price growth has been slowing amid the central bank's interest-rate hikes, those hikes could be hitting your wallet.
Michelle Bowman, a Federal Reserve governor, recently said that multiple interest-rate hikes might be in store to bring inflation down to target levels, after 11 hikes in the past 12 meetings. But for many Americans, what do these rate hikes even mean, and how do they affect adults buying a home or paying off credit-card bills?
The Fed funds rate, with a target range now at 5.25% to 5.5%, is the rate at which banks and credit unions borrow and lend excess reserves to one another overnight, set by the Federal Open Market Committee. While the Fed rate itself is mostly directly relevant to banks, it acts as a benchmark for most interest rates that matter to consumers and businesses, including mortgage and credit-card rates.
From April 2020 to March 2022, the Fed funds rate was in the 0% to 0.25% range, which was implemented to stimulate economic growth and inflation after the start of the pandemic.
But to get the economy in a stabler position after inflation began to take off in 2021, the Fed hiked rates to increase the cost of credit, making loans more expensive. With higher borrowing costs, banks, consumers, and businesses may borrow less money. Because less money circulates throughout the economy, inflation — and the economy at large — tends to cool.
The rate also influences the market, as hikes often lead to drops in the stock market as investors become wary about businesses' ability to expand profitably in an era when loans are more expensive.
Bank prime loan rates, the interest rates banks charge creditworthy customers, are typically about 3 percentage points higher than the Fed funds rate. The prime rate is the basis for mortgages, personal loans, and other major consumer loans.
Take auto loans as an example. Interest rates for two-year auto loans tend to be slightly higher than the prime rate, meaning auto loans have been between 3 and 5 percentage points above the Fed funds rate. As the Fed hiked interest rates, auto loans jumped from a pandemic low of 4.6% in October 2021 to a 2023 high of 7.5%. More than 14% of drivers couldn't secure a car loan in June, according to the Federal Reserve, as lenders worried about rising balances and higher delinquency rates — while high interest rates and monthly car payments hurt consumers' wallets.
Auto loans are now at about their highest point since 2007, in line with the Fed funds rate. They also remained rather stagnant during the Fed's zero-interest-rate policy.
Credit-card rates, though much higher than the prime rate, have a similar shape. Amid the Fed's rate hikes, credit-card rates have increased roughly 6% since January 2022, while the Fed funds rate has risen over 5%. Likewise, as the Fed kept rates near 0% at the start of the pandemic, credit-card rates stayed roughly constant. An analysis by WalletHub found the most recent 25-basis-point rate hike could cost credit-card users about $1.72 billion in additional interest charges over the next year.
In the short term, the Fed funds rate also affects Treasury yields, or the interest rate the government pays on its debt obligations. These yields influence how much consumers pay on real estate and equipment, as they set a baseline for other interest rates. These yields are determined by economic stability, interest rates, and geopolitical conditions.
The two-year Treasury yield is nearly identical to the Fed funds rate. During the height of the pandemic, both curves had a similar shape, with the Fed funds rate lagging slightly.
The 10-year Treasury yield less closely parallels the Fed funds rate but still has a relatively similar pattern. Over the past few years, the 10-year Treasury yield fell and rose roughly in line with the Fed funds rate, which suggests the long-term economic outlook is more or less improving.
Ten-year Treasury yields serve as a proxy for fixed-rate mortgages, which have trended about 2% to 4% higher than the Fed funds rate over the past decade. Mortgage rates typically move with shifts in 10-year Treasury yields. The 30-year fixed mortgage rate also changes with inflation — Fed rate hikes are done to slow inflation.
This means if you're looking to purchase a home, a rise in the Fed funds rate indirectly pushes mortgage rates up, as the 30-year fixed mortgage rate hovers just below 7%. Those looking for a new home now have less purchasing power because of the Fed decisions and inflation. A WalletHub analysis found homebuyers with a 30-year fixed-rate mortgage would pay $11,160 more over the course of the loan than if they secured the loan before July, under the condition that the average home loan is $426,100.
For those looking to save money, certificate-of-deposit rates are another metric closely tied to the Fed funds rate. Ninety-day CD rates track almost identically to the Fed funds rate, meaning these CDs have paid higher interest rates as the Fed hikes rates.
Large corporations also are directly affected by higher interest rates, as the cost of borrowing money also follows the Fed funds rate. The yield on corporate bonds, which are issued by corporations to raise financing, has somewhat mirrored the dips and spikes of the Fed funds rate, particularly with companies that have the highest credit rating from Moody's. This suggests that as the Fed raises rates, investors get bigger returns on corporate bonds. However, those higher rates for corporate borrowing could lead businesses to curtail investments in their operations.
All this is to say, the Fed's decision to hike rates 11 times in the past 12 meetings may not yet show up at the grocery checkout, though such hikes have major effects on paying off credit-card debt, buying a home, and purchasing a new car.