Washington ? Federal Reserve policy-makers, worried about companies’ inability to create new jobs, kept interest rates at a 45-year low on Tuesday and signaled anew that they would be slow to order any future increase that could cramp the economy’s recovery.

Private economists viewed the Fed policy statement as more somber than its comments after a similar meeting in late January, reflecting the fact that the central bank has seen two disappointing monthly employment reports since then.

Some economists said it was very likely that the Fed would not raise its target for the federal funds rate, the interest that banks charge each other, from 1 percent until sometime in 2005. That represented a change from the previous view that the Fed simply would wait until after the November election before starting to raise rates.

“The Fed is going to stand pat indefinitely,” said Sung Won Sohn, chief economist at Wells Fargo in Minneapolis. “There is little likelihood that the Fed will even think about raising rates in 2004.”

That would be good news for borrowers who already are enjoying the lowest interest rates in more than four decades. Commercial banks’ prime lending rate, the benchmark for millions of consumer and business loans, has been at 4 percent, the lowest level since 1958, since the Fed last cut rates by a quarter-point last June.

And receding worries about possible Fed rate increases has helped to push long-term rates down as well with the nationwide average for 30-year mortgages dropping last week to 5.41 percent.