Press conference exchange between NANCY MARSHALL and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: -GENZER. Hi, Chair Powell. Nancy Marshall-Genzer with Marketplace. One more question on the lack of unanimity in today’s decision, the two dissents. Was there talk during the meeting? I know you’re not going to talk about what—exactly what individuals said, but, in general, was there talk during the meeting of cutting rates, and what was the case against that at the meeting?

assistant: Sure. So, you know, we have—we have an economic go-round, where people talk about the economy, and then the next—to—then to—that’s yesterday. And then today, we have a monetary policy go-round, all the way around the table—everyone gives their views. So the discussion around policy was—the majority view was, was still what it has been, which is that inflation is running above target, maximum employment is right at target. That means policy, policy should be a little bit restrictive, somewhat restrictive, because we want—we want inflation to, to move all the way back to its target. So that’s where people have been and still are. Two of our members felt that the time had come to cut and that they—for the reasons that they’re—they’re going to express. I won’t tell you the reasons. They—they’ll issue some a—of a thing in the next day or so. So—but that’s the story. And I would say, you know, well argued, very thoughtfully argued all around the table, good arguments. And, you know, it’s a situation where—an unusual situation. The economy is in—is in, you know, good shape, but it’s an unusual situation where you have risks to both your employment mandate and your inflation. That’s the nature of a supply shock. And it’s probably not surprising that there would be differences and different perspectives on that as well as different views of where the neutral rate is, so they—different views of how tight policy is. So we have those. I will say, what you hope is that people, you know, explain their, their positions very thoughtfully and clearly. And we absolutely had that today all the way around the table. I would call it one of the better meetings I can recall from that standpoint.

user: -GENZER. And you’ve said you’re waiting to be confident inflation is heading toward your 2 percent target before you start cutting rates. When you do get that confidence, would you be in—would you be in favor of lowering rates right away?

assistant: It’s not, not quite the way I would put it. You know, I said that’s why we think policy should, should be restrictive, is because, you know, inflation is above target. When we—when we have risks to both goals—one of them is farther away from goal than the other, and that’s inflation. Maximum employment’s at goal. So you have to—that means policy should be tight because tight policy is what brings inflation down. If you came to the view that the risks to the two were more in balance, that would imply that policy shouldn’t be restrictive, it should be more neutral—more, more, you know, a neutral stance. And that would be somewhat lower than where we are now. No one knows exactly where that is. So that’s—that’s the framework I think I’d be taking. And, you know, we’ll just have to see. We’re going to be obviously looking at a lot of data in the next cycle. It is one of the cycles where we have two employment and two inflation reports, and we’ll see where that takes us.