The Federal Reserve cut interest rates by a quarter percentage point, avoiding any surprises just days after the election of Donald Trump as president.

The central bank voted unanimously Thursday to cut its benchmark rate by 25 basis points to a new range of 4.5%-4.75%, making the decision at the conclusion of its two-day policy meeting in Washington, D.C.

The move marks the second rate cut in seven weeks, following a jumbo half percentage point reduction in September that kicked off the Fed’s first easing cycle in more than four years.

This new cut was justified, according to the Fed’s Federal Open Market Committee, as a way of supporting its dual mandate to maintain stable prices and maximize employment.

However, the central bank removed language from its policy statement noting that the "committee has gained greater confidence that inflation is moving sustainably towards 2%," raising new questions about the pace and number of future rate cuts.

Instead the policy statement noted that the committee "judges that the risks to achieving its employment and inflation goals are roughly in balance.”

Among other tweaks, the Fed removed the word "further" in the first paragraph of its statement when discussing the progress made on bringing down inflation, saying that inflation had simply "made progress" toward the Fed's objective.

The Fed also tweaked language characterizing the state of the job market, noting that conditions in the job market have "eased," and the unemployment rate has moved up but remains low.

Fed policymakers this week had to make sense of a lot of mixed data as of late indicating a strong economy, persistent inflation, and a muddled jobs market disrupted by weather and worker strikes.

The latest reading from the central bank’s preferred inflation gauge, the Personal Consumption Expenditures (PCE) index, contained both good news and not-so-good news for the Fed as it works to get inflation down to its 2% goal.

It showed inflation rose 2.1% during the month of September, within shouting distance of the Fed’s target.

But the complicating factor was that on a "core" basis, which excludes volatile food and energy prices, PCE was 2.7% — holding the same level as August. And that’s the Fed’s preferred way to look at the measure.

Another issue for policymakers to consider was that core PCE has now held at 2.7% for three straight months — instead of dropping.

An additional complication was that the health of the job market was clouded by the latest Labor Department report that showed only 12,000 jobs were created during October. That low figure was due in part to the temporary effects of two hurricanes and a strike at jet maker Boeing.