🗣️Fed President Jerome Powell:

•The economy has performed very well in the last few years.

•The labor market is coming into better balance.

•We will no longer see an overheated labor market.

•We didn't gain good confidence in the first quarter, but we strengthened our confidence with 3 better readings in the second quarter.

•The economy is expected to slow down this year and inflation will continue to decline.

•If we wait for inflation to drop to 2%, we will be waiting too long.

•We will make the FOMC interest rate decision at the meeting based on the data we have.

•Three data from the second quarter increased confidence that inflation was falling

•If we see an unexpected weakening in the labor market, this will require us to react.

•We will not send any signals regarding any meeting today.

•The Fed's job is to make decisions based solely on data, not policy.

•We need more progress on inflation.

•Our mistake was to think that inflation was temporary.

•The authorities want to be sure that inflation will decrease.