Jerome Powell: “We believe that this is the best way we can help set conditions in which Americans who want a job can find one.”

If we're going to do that successfully, we need to do it in a completely nonpolitical way, which means we don't take sides, we don't play one side against the other, we stay out of issues that are really not our bailiwick.

If we move too quickly, then we may leave the inflation job unfinished and have to come back later and finish it.

I want to hand over to my successor an economy in good shape.

As long as the economy is in solid shape, we think the prudent thing to do is to wait and see what those effects might be.