Senator Elizabeth Warren and three Democratic colleagues urged Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell to lower interest rates to help bring down housing costs ahead of the central bank's policy meeting this week.
"High interest rates have aggravated the country's persistent crisis of housing access and affordability," the senators wrote in a
Warren, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a frequent critic of the Fed's rate-hike campaign, was joined by Colorado's John Hickenlooper, Nevada's Jacky Rosen and Rhode Island's Sheldon Whitehouse. The letter was first reported by CNN.
The Fed raised interest rates to a range of 5.25% to 5.5% — a 22-year high — over the past two years in an effort to cool rapid inflation. The policy led the effective rate on a 30-year mortgage to top 8% last year, though it's since fallen from that peak.
Warren and her colleagues argued higher mortgage rates have worsened a crisis in housing supply, and that higher rates are also putting upward pressure on rental costs.
The Fed slowed down its pace of rate hikes last year and hasn't raised rates since July. Powell and his colleagues have signaled that the next move is likely a cut, with markets expecting that to come as early as the spring. Fed officials penciled in three interest-rate cuts this year in projections released in December.
Policymakers are expected to keep interest rates unchanged when they meet this week.
