"We're always going into this meeting and asking 'What's the right thing to do for the people we serve?' We do that and we make a decision as a group and then we announce it. That's always what it is,

Would Fed chair Jerome Powell opt for a measured, quarter percentage point change in rates, as he had for the last year? Or would he go big with a double-sized cut, signaling that the economy might be deteriorating faster than expected?

The Federal Reserve made a 0.50 percentage point cut, double the typical reduction. Here's what's behind the decision.