Who are the Fed voters in 2025?

Let’s get straight into it, shall we? Here is a look at the voting committee for the current year that has gone by:

• Jerome Powell (Fed chair)
• John Williams (Fed vice chair, New York Fed)
• Michael Barr (Board of Governors)
• Michelle Bowman (Board of Governors)
• Lisa Cook (Board of Governors)
• Philip Jefferson (Board of Governors)
• Adriana Kugler (Board of Governors)
• Christopher Waller (Board of Governors)
• Raphael Bostic (Atlanta Fed)
• Beth Hammack (Cleveland Fed)
• Thomas Barkin (Richmond Fed)
• Mary Daly (San Francisco Fed)

In 2025, it will shape up to be:

• Jerome Powell (Fed chair)
• John Williams (Fed vice chair, New York Fed)
• Michael Barr (Board of Governors)
• Michelle Bowman (Board of Governors)
• Lisa Cook (Board of Governors)
• Philip Jefferson (Board of Governors)
• Adriana Kugler (Board of Governors)
• Christopher Waller (Board of Governors)
• Susan Collins (Boston Fed)
• Austan Goolsbee (Chicago Fed)
• Jeffrey Schmid (Kansas City Fed)
• Alberto Musalem (St Louis Fed)

The changes are highlighted in Italic as it pertains to the usual voting committee rotation. The others are always untouched no matter how things play out.

Among those voting next year, it will be the first time for Schmid and Musalem. As for Collins, she was last a voting member back in 2022. And Goolsbee was last a voting member back in 2023.

But the more important question is what is the balance of views among them and those rotating out?

The current outlook is that the Fed is likely to hold a more hawkish tone going into next year. That especially as reflected by the latest dot plots and the fact that they will look to pause in January to start with.

Of those rotating out, the standout is arguably Hammack as she was the only one who voted against the latest Fed rate cut in December. She argued that policy needed to stay “moderately restrictive” until there is further evidence of inflation converging towards the 2% target.

Meanwhile, Bostic, Barkin, and Daly may be regarded as more centrists but with a slight skew towards siding with what the main stance is for the Fed. And in this case, it is leaning more towards where Powell is standing I would say.

As for those rotating in, Schmid is definitely the most hawkish among the four but less so as compared to Hammack. Then, you have Goolsbee who is definitely hanging a little closer to the dovish scale. But Musalem and Collins are perhaps a little more hawkish than your average centrists, particularly the former.

There’s talk of the voting committee being increasingly more hawkish next year but amid the changes, it’s hard to see that outright being the base case scenario.

I reckon Powell will still have a big say on how things will go down at the end of the day. And the thing with the overall Fed view now is that a lot will hinge on upcoming data still.

We did move away from focusing on inflation to labour market data but expect next year to be a bit of a balance of both. That especially as price pressures look to be stalling or at least taking a bumpier path in approaching 2%. And not to mention the threat of Trump’s tariffs and tax cuts as well.

So, those will be the more important focus points as we look towards next year as opposed to who’s who on the voting board considering the rotation above.

This article was written by Justin Low at www.forexlive.com.