President Donald Trump has spent months pushing for the Federal Reserve to lower interest rates. On Wednesday, it finally did.
The Fed voted to cut rates by a quarter of a percentage point, linking its decision to slowing job gains and unemployment increasing slightly. Inflation remains at nearly 3%.
“It’s such an unusual situation,” Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said in a press conference on Wednesday. “Ordinarily, when the labor market is weak, inflation is low. When the labor market is really strong, that’s when you have to be careful about inflation. So, we have a situation where you have two-sided risk. And that means there’s no risk free path.”