This language recognizes that the public’s expectations of inflation are linked to the experience of inflation outcomes. In the nine years since the Committee formally defined price stability as annual PCE inflation of 2 percent, the average 12-month PCE inflation reading has been 1.4 percent.
Persistently low inflation creates  See Stephanie R. Aaronson, Mary C. Daly, William L. Wascher, and David W. Wilcox (2019), “Okun Revisited: Who Benefits Most from a Strong Economy?” Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Spring, pp. 333–75, https://www.brookings.edu/wp-content/uploads/2019/03/Aaronson_web.pdf.