The decision that affects nearly every woman, man, child, and probably pet in America.

Today we learn if interest rates go down or stay the same.

I'm David Brancatia of The Central Bankers at the Federal Reserve can adjust

something called the Fed Funds interest rate in a way that makes borrowing more

or less expensive in the Fed's campaign to keep inflation down in an economically healthy way

but it's a lot like a lot of things in life timing is everything and the

betting is today is not the time to lower rates but seven hours from now we're expecting hints

from the Fed that rates will go lower on September the 18th that's the next time

the Fed meets marketplace's Nova Safo has more.

Inflation, as measured by the Consumer Price Index,

peaked at over 9% two years ago.

It's now down to 3% after a brief setback

at the beginning of the year. Many Federal

reserve officials, including Jerome Powell two weeks ago, have signaled confidence

that they're getting closer to their target 2% inflation rate.

We didn't gain any additional confidence in the first quarter, but the three readings

in the second quarter, including the one from last week, do add it somewhat to confidence.

And that's why markets have been pricing in a September rate cut.

With the labor market cooling but resilient, Fed officials today could give clues not just about the timing of cuts, but about the pace of cuts as well.

I'm Nova Sopho for Marketplace.

Talking lower rates for here in Japan today, Central Bankers did the other thing.

They raised interest rates slightly to try to slow the decline of the Japanese

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