Economic growth slowed during the winter, mostly due to "transitory factors" and inflation will stay low "near term," but rise toward the Federal Open Market Committee's 2% target over the medium term, according to the statement released by the FOMC after its policy meeting.
Given these recent developments, the FOMC decided the 0 to ¼% range for the fed funds target remains appropriate.
The committee reiterated it "anticipates that it will be appropriate to raise the target range for the federal funds rate when it has seen further improvement in the labor market and is reasonably confident that inflation will move back to its 2 percent objective over the medium term."
The FOMC will continue to reinvest principal payments from its holdings of agency debt and agency mortgage-backed securities in agency mortgage-backed securities and of rolling over maturing Treasury securities at auction.
