The new buzzword at the Federal Reserve is "reasonably confident.''

That's the phrase Chair Janet Yellen and her colleagues at the Fed used in the statement this week to describe their need to feel pretty sure that inflation is on the way back to their 2 percent target before liftoff.

In her press conference on March 18, Yellen laid out the markers for what "reasonably confident'' means. While "I don't have a mechanical answer for you,'' there are four targets that matter.

1. Jobs, jobs, jobs

Labor markets need to continue to improve. "A stronger labor market with less labor market slack is one factor that would tend to, certainly for me, increase my confidence," Yellen said.

One key measure of slack is the unemployment rate, which was 5.5 percent in February. The FOMC this month lowered its estimate of longer-term unemployment to 5-5.2 percent. That is a kind of speed limit at which further declines would push up inflation as the stronger hiring spurs faster wage gains. So the labor market has a little further to run before officials expect to see wages rise.

2. Core inflation

Inflation without the food and energy components needs to stabilize. "We expect inflation to remain quite low because of the depressing influence of energy price declines and the dollar,'' Yellen went on. "We will be looking at the inflation data carefully'' to discern what's happening beyond those short- term influences.

In other words, a stabilization or rise in core prices, excluding food and energy, might have more weight than the actual headline price data.

3. Wage growth

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