Federal Reserve to announce Wednesday whether to keep, lower benchmark interest rate

The Federal Reserve will on Wednesday set the level of its benchmark interest rate.

Wall Street expects Fed Chairman Jerome Powell will lower the rate.

The decision comes amid a roughly four-week-long partial federal government shutdown, and followed a Bureau of Labor Statistics report last week, the Consumer Price Index, that showed the costs of goods increased slightly, for the first time since January. 

The central bank last month cut its benchmark interest rate a quarter of a percentage point, its first such reduction this year, in an attempt to jump start a slowing labor market. The federal rate is at 4% and 4.25%.