WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve said it will continue aggressive measures to stimulate the economy and made a major policy shift to focus more directly on boosting the job market.
Fed policymakers said they would keep interest rates at historically low levels until unemployment drops below 6.5%.
It's likely to keep the Fed's short-term interest rates at historically low levels well into 2015.
The move marked the first time that Fed policymakers have tied themselves to an explicit unemployment goal. It appeared to end the long-running debate within the central bank over how aggressively to target the nation's lagging job market.
The jobless figure was 7.7% in November, and the Fed's new forecast doesn't see that dropping below 6.5% for about three years.
The decision was made easier by the slow pace of inflation, which remains below 2% on an annual basis. Critics of the Fed's policies have argued that efforts to stimulate the economy would lead to inflation, but so far, that has not happened, and Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke has argued that the risk is much smaller than the dangers posed by high unemployment.
"The conditions now prevailing in the job market represent an enormous waste of human and economic potential," Bernanke said Wednesday during a news conference after the central bank's last policy meeting of the year.
Under its new policy, the Fed would let its inflation outlook rise to 2.5% before taking action to curtail it — giving the nation's employers more time to create jobs.
The move to link interest rate policies directly to the jobless rate is meant to give the public and businesses greater confidence about how long interest rates will remain exceptionally low, and that by itself could act as a kind of stimulus to the economy.
The new push got a warm welcome from both economists and Wall Street.
Economist Bernard Baumohl at the Economic Outlook Group said the previous time frame for action was "self-defeating because it provided no incentive for employers to start spending any time soon to avoid higher interest rates. It just didn't create any sense of urgency to accelerate investments or increase the rate of hiring."
The Fed has kept its federal funds rate, which influences rates for credit cards, mortgages and business and other loans, near zero since December 2008. Unemployment has been near 8% or above since early 2009.
Bernanke and his colleagues also decided Wednesday to continue the controversial large-scale bond-buying programs in the new year. Specifically, the Fed will buy $40 billion of mortgage-backed securities and $45 billion of long-term Treasury bonds a month.
The purchases are intended to drive down long-term interest rates to spur spending, investment and lending, boosting economic activity as well as hiring.
The central bank launched the purchase of mortgage-backed securities in September to give a lift especially to the housing market, which Fed policymakers said Wednesday "has shown further signs of improvement." They said they would continue to buy bonds until the job market "improved substantially."
The Fed, which has a dual mandate to maximize employment and keep inflation in check, also forecast a somewhat stronger growth for next year.
Its policy statement Wednesday noted a slowing in U.S. business investment and "significant downside risks" in the global economy, but made no mention of the so-called fiscal cliff, the automatic federal budget cuts and tax hikes scheduled to take effect beginning Jan. 1.
In a 75-minute news conference, however, Bernanke said it was clearly evident that concerns about the fiscal impasse already had hurt the economy, weakening business investments and consumer confidence.
He said that whatever the Fed did, it was not enough to offset the full effects of a U.S. economy failing to resolve fiscal issues. But he was cautiously optimistic: "I actually believe that Congress will come up with a solution, and I certainly hope they will."
For years, the Fed didn't give any indication of its future interest-rate path and only in recent years signaled what it might do by using somewhat vague language. In June 2011, the Fed said that it would keep rates exceptionally low for an "extended period." In August 2011, policymakers said no change was likely until at least mid-2013. And that date has since been extended twice, to late 2014 and then mid-2015.
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