Janet Yellen

WASHINGTON — Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen navigated the tricky job of managing expectations Tuesday in her first public comments on interest rate policy in more than two months.

She wanted the world to know the Fed isn’t ready yet to raise rates from record lows. The job market is still healing, and inflation is too low, she said. At the same time, Yellen signaled the Fed is moving closer to a rate hike by sketching the steps the central bank would take when it deemed the time was right.

In delivering the Fed’s semiannual economic report before the Senate Banking Committee, Yellen tried to balance the public’s thirst for information on future plans, while giving the central bank as much flexibility as possible to tweak monetary policy on its own terms.

The Fed has two mandates: maximum employment and price stability. The dilemma she faces now is the two measures are heading in opposite directions.

Yellen told lawmakers the U.S. economy is making steady progress toward what the Fed defines as “maximum employment” — a rate between 5.2 percent and 5.5 percent. The jobless rate in January stood at 5.7 percent, down from a high of 10 percent in 2009. Yellen, however, noted the labor market had not totally healed, in large part because wage growth has been weak.