If there’s one thing you can say about Fed policymakers, it’s that they don’t make decisions on a whim. When the Federal Open Market Committee met on Jan. 31, 2024, it held interest rates steady – as most observers expected. That marks six months since the Fed last changed the base rate.

And people should expect to wait a little while more: Fed Chair Jerome Powell said a rate cut was “not likely” to come at the next meeting in March. But over the course of his news conference after the meeting, he emphasized that nothing is set in stone.

The Federal Reserve has what is called a dual mandate: Its job is to achieve maximum employment and keep prices stable. Often there’s a trade-off between these goals: Cutting rates often helps with the former, while lowering them helps with the latter.

And in recent months, controlling inflation has been the focus of Fed policy. In his remarks on Jan. 31, Powell made it clear that Americans shouldn’t expect the Fed to do anything to rates until the U.S. gets closer to its........

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