Months into the rollout of President Trump’s slew of tariffs, consumers are making spending decisions in a haze of confusion about whether higher prices are the result of levies, general inflation or companies simply padding their profit margins.

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to hold interest rates steady at its meeting this week, but investors will be watching for something else — whether central bank policy makers are still committed to two rate cuts this year.

The Federal Reserve is widely expected to hold interest rates steady next week, with investors focused on new central bank projections that will show how much weight policymakers are putting on recent soft data and how much risk they attach to unresolved trade and budget issues and an intensifying conflict in the Middle East.

The forecasts could change again before the formal COLA announcement in October if higher U.S. tariffs cause prices to increase over the summer. The official announcement of 2026s

More than half of Americans (56 percent) say they believe that the U.S. economy is headed in the wrong direction, according to Bankrate’s new Consumer Sentiment Survey. That’s virtually unchanged from a similar Bankrate poll published before the November 2024 presidential elections, when 55 percent felt the economy was on the wrong track.

Trump has demanded the U.S. central bank lower its benchmark overnight interest rate immediately by a full percentage point, a dramatic step that would amount to an all-in bet by the Fed that inflation will fall to its 2% target and stay there regardless of what the administration does and even with dramatically looser financial conditions.

Inflation moved up in May as Trump's tariffs threatened to filter into consumer prices, CPI report shows. Gasoline prices declined for fourth month