by John Carney
Breitbart.com
Federal Reserve officials agreed on Wednesday to hold interest rates steady for the sixth consecutive meeting, signaling that they are willing to keep rates at the highest level in more than two decades for longer than previously expected and noting that progress on bringing down inflation has stalled.
The central bank left its benchmark federal funds rate unchanged in a range between 5.25 percent and 5.5 percent, as it awaits more evidence that inflation is sustainably falling to its two percent target.
The Fed last raised the fed funds rate in July, with Fed chairman Jerome Powell saying at the time that it was too soon to tell whether inflation was cooling enough to rule out further hikes. At the following meeting in September, the projections of Fed officials suggested that the Fed might raise rates one more time before the end of the year.