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Federal Funds Rate History: 1954 to March 2025

Fed Continues to Hold Rates at its Second Meeting of 2025

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Richard Laycock

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The Fed held rates at its second meeting on Wednesday, March 19, 2025 at a target range of 4.25% to 4.50%. This follows a hold at the January 2025 meeting.

Latest federal funds rate data at a glance

  1. Current Fed rate: The Fed maintained rates at a range of 4.25% to 4.50% following the Wednesday, March 19, 2025 meeting(1)
  2. Effective federal funds rate: 4.33% as of Wednesday, March 19, 2025(4)
  3. Previous meeting: The Fed held rates at 4.25% to 4.50% on Wednesday, January 29, 2025(1)
  4. Rate this time last year: Held rates at a range of 5.25-5.50% at its March meeting in 2024(1)
  5. Next meeting: Wednesday, May 7, 2025(2)
  6. Highest rate since 1954: 19.1% monthly average recorded June 1981(3)
  7. Lowest rate since 1954: 0.05% monthly average recorded April 2020(3)

Changes to the federal funds rate in the last 12 months

The Fed finally cut rates in September 2024, a trend that continued at the November and December meetings, bringing the target range from 4.5%–4.75% to 4.25%–4.5% following the eighth and final Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meeting of 2024.

Over the last 24 months or so, we’ve seen a lot of movement in the Fed rate, with the Fed raising rates four times in 2023, starting with consecutive rate increases of 25 basis points in February, March and May 2023. Rates were then held in June and increased by a further 25 basis point hike in July. Since then, there was a string of holds until the final three meetings of 2024 and then pauses in rate cuts at the January and March 2025 meetings.

The Fed raised rates seven times in 2022, which is the highest number of Fed rate hikes in a single year since 2005. While 2005 saw more Fed rate hikes in total (8), individual increases were just 25 basis points, whereas the changes in 2022 have ranged from 25 to 75 basis points.

7 years of changes to the federal funds rate

Since 2018, the average federal funds rate has been 2.61%, which is about half of where we’re at today. However, during this period, the US saw historically low rates, in part due to Covid. Rates hit a record low of 0.05% for the months of April and May 2020.

The history of federal funds rate changes

It’s not a great sign that the Fed rate is up compared to its average over the last decade or so. However, with the the effective federal funds rate sitting at 4.33% that is actually lower than the average rate since 1954 (4.61).

2025 FOMC meeting calendar

Eight meetings of the Federal Open Market Committee are scheduled for 2025.

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Lead Editor & Insights Editor

Richard Laycock is Finder’s NYC-based lead editor & insights editor, spending the last decade data diving, writing and editing articles about all things personal finance. His musings can be found across the web including on NASDAQ, MoneyMag, Yahoo Finance and Travel Weekly. Richard studied Media at Macquarie University, including a semester abroad at The Missouri School of Journalism (MIZZOU). See full bio

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