Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell explains the decision to leave the policy rate, federal funds rate, unchanged at the range of 5.25%-5.5% and responds to questions in the post-meeting press conference.

Key takeaways

"Upside risks to inflation have decreased."

"Downside risks to employment mandate are real now."

"Policy rate is clearly restrictive."

"Time is coming when it will begin to be appropriate to dial back restriction."

"We'll get a lot of data between now and September."

"We've seen some tendency to have a narrowing base of job creation some months, but not in others."

"We do look at private demand extra carefully."