The Federal Reserve committee is maintaining a slow and steady approach to raising interest rates, according to the minutes of a meeting held in March which were published on Wednesday.
Some had anticipated that strong employment and spending figures may encourage policymakers to boost rates earlier than expected due to the risk of a surge in prices.
But this appears not to be the case, despite two officials calling for an increase to have taken place last month.
The documents suggested that the Fed will stick with its plan to increase rates just twice this year, rather than the four hikes they had initially intended.
The downward revision came last month in response to concerns over the instability of the global markets, particularly due to the weakening of the Chinese economy.
According to the published minutes a number of central figures on the committee disagreed with an immediate rate hike, citing the continuing elevated risks to the US economy.
They indicated that they felt an increase in interest rates even this month, in April, would ‘signal a sense of urgency that they did not think appropriate’.
The Federal Reserve first hiked rates in December 2015, increasing them by a quarter of a percentage point.
They had been holding a rate of almost zero for seven years, since the beginning of the global financial crisis.
The US markets responded to the news by failing slightly after having risen fairly steadily throughout the day, highlighting their continued nervousness about the impact that rising rates too quickly might have on growth.
The S&P 500 Index shed over six points from its peak to 2053.86 in the immediate aftermath of the announcement and the Dow Jones dropped by 60 points to 17621.75, while the Nasdaq Index was down 10 points to 4511.51.
However all three recovered within the hour and quickly made further gains.
While employment and wages have been making gains in recent months not all indicators have been enjoying the same success.
Manufacturing figures for the first quarter of this year – published on Monday – showed that business spending on capital goods was much weaker than originally thought, indicating a further decline in the growth of the economy.
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