Many voters don't feel good about the economy, but one of the most powerful economic policymakers in the country thinks it's going okay and getting better.

I'm David Brancaccio. The Federal Reserve cut its short-term interest rate by a quarter of a percentage point yesterday at his briefing Fed chair, Jerome Powell, stayed away from politics, despite the freshness of the news of Donald Trump's decisive victory.

But many of Trump's proposals could affect the scale and timing of changes to the central bank's interest rate policy.

Marketplace's Nancy Marshall-Genzor was at the briefing.

Fed Chair Jerome Powell says he feels good about the current state of the economy.

The labor market has cooled from its formerly overheated state and remains solid.

Inflation has eased substantially from a peak of 7% to 2.1% as of September.

This latest interest rate cut is meant to keep things on track,

but some economists say President-elect Trump's plans for

tariffs, tax cuts, and an immigration crackdown could reignite inflation or even cause

stagflation, where economic growth stalls, but inflation and unemployment rise. I asked,

pal, what he would do if stagflation became a problem. The whole plan is not to have

stagflation, so we don't have to deal with it. So that's our, that is actually our plan.

The Fed's main inflation fighting tool is interest rates. When prices spike, the central bank

tries to cool the economy by raising rates so it's more expensive to borrow and spend.

And yesterday, Powell, wouldn't rule out a rate hike next year, although we added that's certainly not the

planned at this point.

We're not in a war where we can afford to rule things out a full year in advance.

There's just too much uncertainty in what we do. With all that uncertainty,

Powell says what the Fed does next depends on the data on things like unemployment and inflation.

Powell says decisions on interest rates will be made meeting by meeting and the Fed isn't on a

preset course. I'm Nancy Marshall Genser for Marketplace.

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