Jerome Powell: “Getting past the pandemic is the single most important thing we can do.”

When you significantly slow the growth of the labor force, you will slow the growth of the economy.

Rising downside risks to employment have shifted our assessment of the balance of risks

It is a big risk to our independence if we were to stray into areas where we shouldn’t that really aren’t part of our mandate.

So we didn't overreact — in fact, we didn't react at all. We're simply taking some time.