And it will be up to Janet Yellen, Powell's predecessor as Fed chief who is now Biden's Treasury secretary, to take up the lead in pushing that stimulus package through Congress.
Still, the prospect that rising yields will continue burnishing the dollar's attractiveness has given pause to some investors betting on more declines in the greenback.
Investors awaiting an auction of 30-year government debt shrugged off a report showing an increase in US consumer prices in December amid rising gasoline costs.
In the 12 months through December the CPI advanced 1.4% after increasing 1.2% in November.
Investors are watching to see if the recent rise in yields will lure buyers to today's $38 billion sale of 10-year notes.
The Georgia Senate run-off elections really changed the landscape for the outlook pretty significantly as there is now potentially very significant additional stimulus.
Fed policymakers remain "fully committed to using our policy tools to achieve our goals, in support of a broad-based and sustainable recovery," Mester said.
Minority-owned businesses: $12 billion for minority owned and very small businesses that struggled to access earlier Payroll Protection Program financing.
Spot gold was up 0.5pc to $1,874.14 per ounce at 1030 GMT, having hit a near one-month high of $1,882.76 earlier in the session. U.S. gold futures were up 1.1pc to $1,878.50.
The US central bank said it would also now tie its program of monthly government bond purchases to that same goal.
The language does for the first time however link its $120 billion in monthly purchases of US Treasury bonds and government-backed securities to a set of economic conditions.
Technology shares pushed Wall Street higher on Tuesday, with the Nasdaq ending at a record high, with investors viewing the sector as more resilient to the pandemic.
The S&P 500 opened higher by 18.92 points, or 0.52pc, at 3,666.41, while the Nasdaq Composite gained 103.22 points, or 0.83pc, to 12,543.26 at the opening bell.
China's blue-chips, however, ended 0.2pc higher, helped by upbeat factory data which expanded for an eighth month in a row as an economic recovery gathered pace.
Across what is one of the country’s most technocratic and PhD-heavy institutions, months of singular focus on the path of the pandemic and its impact on the U.S. economy has yielded this: Who the heck knows?
Private employers added 365,000 jobs in October, according to data from payroll services firm ADP released Wednesday, a significant undershoot in hiring.
The new policy, laid out in a strategic document last month and incorporated into a policy statement issued on Wednesday.
Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said, for example, that he'd be paying closer attention to how fast inflation rises rather than on its quarter-to-quarter level in implementing the new approach.