The Globe and Mail reports in its Wednesday edition that U.S. Federal Reserve officials are facing both rising unemployment and elevated inflation. A New York Times dispatch to The Globe says minutes from the Fed's final gathering of 2025 in December, released Tuesday, underscore the difficult task facing Jerome Powell, the chair, as he tries to forge a consensus among policy-makers after a series of increasingly contentious interest-rate reductions. The record of the December meeting showed that officials remained at odds over the outlook for inflation and the labour market and whether the risk of sticky price pressures or rising joblessness posed the greater threat. They also appeared unsure about just how much they are restraining the economy with interest rates at a range of 3.5 per cent to 3.75 per cent -- a level that Mr. Powell said left the Fed "well positioned to wait to see how the economy evolves." Most officials thought that further interest-rate cuts would most likely be appropriate as long as inflation continued to decline -- despite earlier concerns about tariffs stoking inflation -- but the minutes also indicated that officials appeared less certain about the magnitude and timing of those cuts.