WASHINGTON — If you didn’t know about the lingering damage from the Great Recession, the U.S. economy would appear remarkably strong.

The unemployment rate is a close-to-healthy 5.8 percent. Inflation is unusually low. Crashing oil prices are rewarding consumers with a tax cut of sorts.

Yet the Federal Reserve made clear Wednesday that it’s eyeing those improvements with caution. The Fed isn’t yet convinced it can start to pull away its stimulus of record-low interest rates.

Though the Fed has kept its key rate near zero for nearly six years to encourage borrowing, spending and investment, the economy has yet to fully repair the destruction from its worst crisis in 80 years.

Many workers remain trapped in part-time jobs. Paychecks are barely rising. Homeownership is dropping. Slumping oil prices have reduced inflation to a level so low it could eventually discourage spending and further stifle wage growth.

So the U.S. central bank declared it would be “patient” in deciding when to raise its benchmark rate from a record low, where it’s been since December 2008.

“There is no preset time,” Fed Chair Janet Yellen said.

Her message was that the strength of U.S. economic data and the level of inflation, not a calendar deadline, will dictate when the Fed raises rates. At a time of global economic turmoil and collapsing oil prices, Yellen stressed the central bank was making no policy changes.

“They’re doing what everyone else is doing — following the data and trying to anticipate where we’ll be six months or a year from now,” said Seth Masters, chief investment officer for Bernstein Global Wealth Management.

Most economists think the Fed’s first rate increase will occur in June as long as its inflation outlook doesn’t remain persistently below its target rate of 2 percent. In an updated economic outlook, the Fed lowered its inflation forecast for next year to between 1 percent and 1.6 percent.

Because inflation remains so low, Yellen said she would be comfortable waiting until the unemployment rate fell from its current 5.8 percent to historically low levels to help put upward pressure on prices.

On Wednesday, investors cheered the Fed’s strategy. The Dow Jones industrial average, which had been up about 160 points before the Fed issued its statement, roared higher to close up 280 points. The stock market tends to applaud low rates because they make it easier for individuals and businesses to borrow and spend.