Federal Reserve vows to support U.S. economy's long road to recovery after dire 2020

The fresh policymaker projections start to show just how long that might take. At the median, officials see the unemployment rate falling to 6.5% at the end of 2021 and 5.5% at the end of 2022 - still a full 2 percentage points above where it was at the end of last year, representing millions of lost years of work and wages.

"The ongoing public health crisis will weigh heavily on economic activity, employment and inflation in the near term and poses considerable risks to the economic outlook over the medium term," the Fed said in its policy statement.

The response has been an unparalleled level of unanimity in the outlook for monetary policy. All 17 current Fed policymakers see the key overnight interest rate, or federal funds rate, remaining near zero through next year, and 15 of 17 see no change through 2022.

Even in the depths of the 2007-2009 financial crisis and recession some policymakers raised a cautionary flag about the need for higher interest rates to guard against inflation.

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This time that debate has disappeared. The Fed's preferred measure of inflation is expected to be a weak 0.8% this year, compared to the central bank's goal of 2%, and rising to just 1.7% at the end of 2022.

At this point "we are not even thinking about thinking about raising rates," Powell said.

The decision to leave the policy rate unchanged on Wednesday was unanimous. The central bank also began shaping the longer-term measures it will use to keep the recovery as strong as possible. Officials promised to maintain ongoing Fed bond purchases at least at the current pace of around $80 billion per month in Treasuries and $40 billion per month in agency and mortgage-backed securities - levels that may be increased later, or supplemented with other strategies.

While growth may resume this year, policymaker forecasts show the rebound beginning in earnest in 2021, with economic growth for the year forecast at 5%.

Notably, the Fed did not mark down its long-run estimates of full employment, trend growth or the federal funds rate, a sign officials feel the country may escape permanent economic damage from a health crisis that has killed more than 112,000 in a few months.

"Their messaging is we are keeping rates low, but this is going to work, it is going to get us there," said Bruce Monrad, chairman and portfolio manager at Northeast Investors Trust in Boston.