We are carefully monitoring these developments and assessing their implications for the U.S economic outlook and inflation, and will act as appropriate to sustain the expansion, with a strong labor market and inflation near its symmetric 2 percent objective. We will also assess these developments in the context of the broader structural changes monetary policymakers have been facing since the Great Recession.
I will focus on three tonight: the changed macroeconomic backdrop, the expanded toolkit, and the heightened focus on communication and transparency. In the United States, from the mid-1980s to right before the Great Recession, PCE inflation averaged 2.6 percent a year, GDP growth 3.4 percent, and the interest rate on a 10-year Treasury note 6.5 percent.