Will the Fed’s lower bound reach 0.25% or lower before 2027?

The Fed's own forecasts put policy rates in the mid-3% range through 2027, and this contract requires a collapse to levels the central bank hasn't touched outside its two most severe crisis responses in modern history. Current policy sits comfortably above 3%, with the Fed's own projections showing only modest, gradual easing extending well into next year and beyond. Multiple independent forecasters, from major banks to financial research firms, converge on the same picture: rates holding steady or drifting slightly lower through the current year, with cuts, if they happen at all, arriving incrementally rather than through anything resembling emergency action. That convergence across otherwise competing forecasting shops is itself meaningful, when banks with different models and incentives all land in the same mid-3% range, the market has effectively priced out any near-term scenario resembling this contract's threshold. The structural distance here is measured in crisis severity, not ordinary policy cycles. Rates at or below this threshold have historically appeared only twice in the modern era, both times as direct responses to acute systemic emergencies requiring the Fed to flood the financial system with support. Reaching that territory again by the deadline would require a shock of comparable magnitude compressed into an unusually short window, a severe recession, a major financial crisis, or a deflationary spiral serious enough to force emergency-level accommodation far outside the Fed's current telegraphed path. For YES, that kind of acute crisis needs to both emerge and force policy response within the remaining timeframe. For NO, the Fed simply continues its currently guided gradual path. The case for not dismissing this as impossible is that financial crises have historically arrived with little advance warning, and central banks have been forced into dramatic, rapid pivots when underlying stress in credit or labor markets exceeded what existing models anticipated. Reaching this threshold would signal the most severe economic distress since the Fed's last two crisis-response episodes, with cascading effects across employment, credit availability, and global financial stability that would dominate every other macro narrative. Bottom line: watch for any sudden, severe deterioration in labor market or financial stability indicators serious enough to force emergency action, not routine economic data releases. Only a genuine systemic crisis realistically opens a path to this threshold; continued adherence to the Fed's currently guided gradual path keeps the contract anchored firmly toward NO.