Following the announcement of a decision today by the Federal Open Markets Committee to hold off on raising interest rates, Congresswoman Maxine Waters (D-CA), Ranking Member of the Committee on Financial Services, commended the cautious and prudent approach to ensuring continued economic growth of the U.S. economy.

In the statement, Waters noted global market volatility and the fact that many families in minority communities have yet to fully benefit from the progress the economy has made, and encouraged the panel to continue to consider these factors in the panels considerations moving forward.

She released the following statement.

“I am pleased the Federal Reserve under the leadership of Chair Yellen has chosen to exercise a prudent and cautious approach to safeguarding our economy by carefully weighing the full range of economic data in assessing whether to raise interest rates.

Since the depths of the Great Recession, which decimated our economy and left millions of families out of work and displaced from their homes, our economy has made remarkable progress.

But despite these gains, volatility in global markets continues to threaten our economic outlook. Furthermore, persistent slack in the labor market remains, with many families who have yet to reap the benefits of the economic recovery.

Data has shown that for African-Americans and Latino communities, the unemployment rate remains considerably higher than those of their white counterparts.

Moving to prematurely raise rates will endanger the critical economic progress we have made, and threaten any gains minorities have only begun to make on the tail end of this recovery.

I remain hopeful that the Fed will continue to keep the well-being of all Americans in mind as they consider potential rate hikes moving forward.”

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