WASHINGTON — The Federal Reserve chairman, Ben S. Bernanke, said Tuesday that the Fed was seeking greater clarity about the health of the recovery, suggesting that officials were not ready to approve another round of stimulus.

Mr. Bernanke repeated the Fed’s June assessment that economic growth has slowed, and is likely to remain slow. And he renewed his warning that scheduled tax increases and spending cuts would tip the economy back into recession.

Rather than committing to new steps, Mr. Bernanke told the Senate Banking Committee that the decision would turn on the judgment of Fed officials about the pace of job growth in the coming months.

The major issue, he said, is “whether or not there is in fact a sustained recovery going on in the labor market, or are we stuck in the mud?” Mr. Bernanke added a wrinkle, saying the central bank “would certainly want to react against any increase in deflation risk.”