In minutes released this week from the Federal Reserve May meeting, central bank policymakers indicated that an interest rate cut isn’t coming anytime soon.

Largely because of mixed economic signals and the United States’ changing tariff agenda, officials noted that they will wait until there’s more clarity about fiscal and trade policy before they will consider lowering rates again.

In prepared remarks earlier this month, Fed Chair Jerome Powell also said that the federal funds rate is likely to stay higher as the economy changes and policy is in flux. 

The Fed’s benchmark sets what banks charge each other for overnight lending, but also has a domino effect on almost all of the borrowing and savings rates Americans see every day.  

Futures market pricing is implying virtually no chance of an interest rate cut at next month’s meeting, and less than a 25% chance of a cut in July, according to the CME Group’s FedWatch gauge.

It is more likely the Federal Open Market Committee won’t lower its benchmark rate until the Fed’s September meeting.

With a rate cut on the backburner for now, consumers struggling under the weight of high prices and high borrowing costs aren’t getting much relief, experts say. 

“You don’t have to wait for the Fed to ride to the rescue,” said Matt Schulz, chief credit analyst at LendingTree. “You can have a far, far greater impact on your interest rates than any Fed rate cut ever will, but only if you take action.”

Here are three ways to do just that:

With a rate cut likely postponed until September, the average credit card annual percentage rate is hovering just over 20%, according to Bankrate — not far from last year′s all-time high. In 2024, banks raised credit card interest rates to record levels, and some issuers said they’ll keep those higher rates in place.

“When interest rates are high, credit card debt becomes the most expensive mistake you can make,” said Howard Dvorkin, a certified public accountant and the chairman of Debt.com.

Rather than wait for a rate cut that may be months away, borrowers could switch now to a zero-interest balance transfer credit card or consolidate and pay off high-interest credit cards with a lower-rate personal loan, said LendingTree’s Schulz.

“Lowering your interest rates with a 0% balance transfer credit card, a low-interest personal loan or even a call to your lender can be an absolute game-changer,” he said. “It can dramatically reduce the amount of interest you pay and the time it takes to pay off the loan.”

Start by targeting your highest-interest credit cards first, Dvorkin advised. That tactic can create an added boost, he said: “Even small extra payments can save you hundreds in interest over time.”

Rates on online savings accounts, money market accounts and certificates of deposit will all go down once the Fed eventually lowers rates. So experts say this is an opportunity to lock in better returns before the central bank trims its benchmark, particularly with a high-yield savings account.

“The best rates now are around 4.5% — while that’s down about a percentage point from last year, it’s still better than we’ve seen over most of the past 15 years,” said Ted Rossman, senior industry analyst at Bankrate.com. “It’s well above the rate of inflation and this is for your safe, sleep-at-night kind of money.”

A typical saver with about $10,000 in a checking or savings account could earn an additional $450 a year by moving that money into a high-yield account that earns an interest rate of 4.5% or more, according to Rossman.

Meanwhile, the savings account rates at some of the largest retail banks are currently 0.42%, on average.

“If you’re still using a traditional savings account from a giant megabank, you’re likely leaving money on the table, and that’s the last thing anyone needs today,” said Schulz.

In general, the higher your credit score, the better off you are when it comes to access and rates for a loan. Alternatively, lower credit scores often lead to higher interest rates for new loans and overall lower credit access.

However, credit scores are trending down, recent reports show. The national average credit score dropped to 715 from 717 a year earlier, according to FICO, developer of one of the scores most widely used by lenders. FICO scores range between 300 and 850.

Amid high interest rates and rising debt loads, the share of consumers who fell behind on their payments jumped over the past year, FICO found. The resumption of federal student loan delinquency reporting on consumers’ credit was also a significant contributing factor, the report said.

VantageScore also reported a drop in average scores starting in February as early- and late-stage credit delinquencies rose sharply, driven by the resumption of student loan reporting.

Some of the best ways to improve your credit score come down to paying your bills on time every month and keeping your utilization rate — or the ratio of debt to total credit — below 30% to limit the effect that high balances can have, according to Tommy Lee, senior director of scores and predictive analytics at FICO.

In fact, increasing your credit score to very good (740 to 799) from fair (580 to 669) could save you more than $39,000 over the lifetime of your balances, a separate analysis by LendingTree found. The largest impact comes from lower mortgage costs, followed by preferred rates on credit cards, auto loans and personal loans.

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America’s fertility rate is hovering around historic lows, with approximately 1.6 births per woman over her lifetime. This is below the level needed to sustain the population, which is 2.1 births per woman.

“Our population will, in the not too distant future, start to decline,” said Melissa Kearney, a professor of economics at the University of Maryland. “That’s why this is an issue for governments and for the economy, and politicians are starting to pay attention.”

The economic implications of a shrinking population are broad. For example, fewer births mean fewer future workers to support programs like Social Security and Medicare, which rely on a healthy worker-to-retiree ratio.

“The concern here in the U.S. is that if we see kind of dramatic declines in fertility, we will eventually see also kind of a drag on our economy and our capacity to cover all sorts of government programs like Medicare and Social Security,” said Brad Wilcox, a sociology professor at the University of Virginia and director of the Get Married Initiative at the Institute For Family Studies.

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Lawmakers from both parties have proposed various financial incentives to address declining fertility.

The White House is considering lump-sum payments of $5,000 for each newborn, according to The New York Times. Last week, the House passed a massive tax and spending package that includes among other provisions, a bigger child tax credit and new “Trump Accounts” with $1,000 in seed money for newborns.

However, Kearney said such policy measures are unlikely to meaningfully affect long-term fertility trends.

“I think the kinds of financial incentives or benefits that we’re providing just really aren’t enough to really change the calculus of, a trade off of … bringing a child into one’s household or family,” Kearney said. “That’s an 18-year commitment. It’s not just a one-year cost.”

Watch the video above to learn more about why government efforts to raise America’s birthrate have struggled to address the deeper economic and cultural challenges.

Federal student loan borrowers could be in repayment for up to 30 years under proposed changes in the House Republicans’ massive spending and tax package, dubbed the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act.”

Currently, most student loan repayment plans range from 10 years to 25 years — which already generate concerns about people bringing their education debt into middle-age and beyond, said higher education expert Mark Kantrowitz.

“A 30-year repayment term means indentured servitude,” Kantrowitz said.

The House passed the bill last week. With control of Congress, Republicans can use “budget reconciliation” to pass their legislation, which only needs a simple majority in the Senate. The House bill’s student loan provisions are unlikely to significantly change in the upper chamber before Trump signs it into law, Kantrowitz said.

Under the House GOP’s bill, there would be just two repayment options for those with federal student loans. (Currently, borrowers have about a dozen ways to repay their student debt, according to Kantrowitz.)

If the legislation is enacted as currently drafted, borrowers would be able to pay back their debt through a plan with fixed payments over 10 years to 25 years, or via an income-driven repayment plan, called the “Repayment Assistance Plan,” which would conclude in loan forgiveness after three decades.

Monthly bills for borrowers on RAP would be set as a share of their income. Payments would typically range from 1% to 10% of a borrowers’ income; the more they earn, the bigger their required payment.

The new plans would potentially make student loan repayment terms much longer for some borrowers.

The U.S. Department of Education now offers a 10-year fixed repayment program, known as the standard plan, and its IDR plans typically conclude in debt cancellation after 20 years or 25 years.

“Simplifying the program with fewer repayment plans is a good idea, but not at the cost of another decade of repayment,” said James Kvaal, who served as U.S. undersecretary of education for former President Joe Biden.

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Longer repayment terms will only exacerbate the problem of more Americans carrying student loans into their old age, consumer advocates say.

There are some 2.9 million people aged 62 and older with federal student loans, as of the first quarter of 2025, according to Education Department data. That is a 71% increase from 2017, when there were 1.7 million such borrowers.