Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell explains the decision to cut the policy rate, federal funds rate, by 25 basis points to the range of 4.25%-4.5% after the December meeting and responds to questions in the post-meeting press conference.

Key quotes

“Lower hiring rate is a signal of softening in labor market.”

“Wages are at a healthy, evermore sustainable level.”

“Labor market is cooling in an orderly way.”

“People are feeling the effect of high prices, not high inflation.”

“Best we can do is to get inflation back to target and keep it there, so wage growth is faster than inflation.”