Federal Reserve officials signaled at their most recent meeting that additional interest rate hikes are necessary this year to bring inflation down to their 2% target, although many supported a slower pace of increases. 

Minutes from the U.S. central bank’s Jan. 31-Feb. 1 meeting released on Wednesday showed that a number of policymakers are worried an “insufficiently restrictive” policy stance could “halt recent progress in moderating inflationary pressures” and keep consumer prices elevated for a longer period.

“Participants observed that a restrictive policy stance would need to be maintained until the incoming data provided confidence that inflation was on a sustained downward path to 2%, which was likely to take some time,” the meeting minutes said.

Officials voted at the meeting to raise the benchmark interest rate a quarter percentage point to a range of 4.5% to 4.75% and signaled that a “couple more” increases are on the table this year. That followed a half-point increase at their December meeting and four consecutive 75-basis-point moves before that. 

The move was unanimous, and “almost all participants” agreed that it was appropriate to raise rates by a quarter point in order to better assess the economic impact of such rapid tightening. But “a few” policymakers favored a bigger 50-basis-point hike.