Directors at two of the Federal Reserve's 12 regional branches favored a 100-basis-point increase in the discount rate in July, minutes of discount-rate meetings show.
The boards of the St. Louis and Minneapolis banks voted for a bigger move on July 14, the Fed said in a statement released Tuesday. A day earlier, a report showed the
![Federal Reserve Headquarters As Fed Officials Foreshadow A Hawkish Powell Speech](https://arizent.brightspotcdn.com/dims4/default/2f3d1ba/2147483647/strip/true/crop/5000x3332+0+0/resize/740x493!/quality/90/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fsource-media-brightspot.s3.us-east-1.amazonaws.com%2Fb9%2Fa8%2Fa7c8dd334eac9ab2a69b03fec6fc%2F390611112-2.jpg)
Policymakers on the Federal Open Market Committee voted unanimously on July 27 to lift the target for their benchmark federal funds rate by 75 basis points to a range of 2.25% to 2.5%. The Fed board also raised the discount rate by the same amount to 2.5%. The discount rate governs the cost of borrowing for banks from the Fed's discount window.
Discount-rate votes by regional Fed directors can be symbolically important as a sign of preference for how rates should move, and can semaphore the views of that bank's president. St. Louis Fed chief James Bullard has been a longstanding hawk and Minneapolis's Neel Kashkari has recently joined him on that wing of the policy-setting FOMC.
Directors at nine of the regional banks had voted for a 75-basis-point increase in the discount rate by the time of the July 27 meeting, while Kansas City Fed directors sought a 50 basis-point hike. Kansas City Fed President Esther George had dissented in June against a 75-basis- point increase,
Both George and Bullard voted with their FOMC colleagues for the 75-basis-point increase in July. Kashkari doesn't vote this year.