WASHINGTON (AP) — Federal Reserve policymakers concluded last month that inflationary pressures were easing and that the job market was cooling. In response, the officials chose to leave their key interest rate unchanged for the third straight time and signaled that they expected to cut rates three times in 2024.

According to the minutes of their Dec. 12-13 meeting released Wednesday, Fed officials indicated in their own interest-rate forecasts that a lower benchmark rate "would be appropriate by the end of 2024'' given the steady progress toward taming inflation.

But they "stressed the importance'' of remaining vigilant and keeping rates high "until inflation was clearly moving down sustainably'' toward their 2% target. And though Chair Jerome Powell suggested at a news conference after the meeting that the Fed was likely done raising rates, the minutes show that uncertainty about the economy's outlook meant that further rate hikes were still possible.

The central bank began raising rates in March 2022 to combat an unexpected resurgence in consumer prices that had begun nearly a year earlier. The Fed has since raised its benchmark rate 11 times to a 22-year high of about 5.4%.

The anti-inflation campaign has made steady progress, allowing the Fed to leave its benchmark rate unchanged since July. Consumer prices were up 3.1% in November from a year earlier — down from a four-decade high 9.1% in June 2022.