What Semiconductors have to do with Child Care for Marketplace, I'm Sabrie Benashore,

in for David Brancaccio.

Semiconductors in a second, first, the Federal Reserve's Open Market Committee is getting together tomorrow and

Wednesday for its last huddle of the year. These are the folks who guide the

country's interest rates and last couple meetings they left rates alone, keeping

them at 5.4%.

That's more than a two-decade high.

Question now is how much longer do they need to stay there

to get inflation down to the Fed's target of 2%.

Marketplace's Mitchell- Mitchell Harpin reports.

Whatever the Fed governors think about their inflation fight,

consumers appear to have decided they've won.

All demographic groups are in agreement that inflation is going to slow down in the year ahead.

Joanne Schu at the University of Michigan Consumer Surveys says that's one reason sentiment shot up in December. Another reason can be seen in the strong

November jobs report. Consumers feel fairly confident about the growth of their

incomes over the next year. That's one of the reasons why

consumer spending has remained so robust. All of which could alarm the Fed, which

worries bigger paychecks and more spending might actually spark an inflation rebound, says

Quincy Crosby at LPL Financial.

With consumer sentiment climbing higher, the wages,

inching up ever so slightly, and the unemployment rate coming down, the Fed may add a little

bit more hawkishness into its statement.

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