2019 Speeches
Chair Jerome H. Powell
Building on the Gains from the Long Expansion
November 2019
("Many people at our Fed Listens events have told us that this long expansion is now benefiting low- and middle-income communities to a degree that has not been felt for many years. We have heard about companies, communities, and schools working together to help employees build skills—and of employers working creatively to structure jobs so that employees can do their jobs while coping with the demands of family and life beyond the workplace. We have heard that many people who in the past struggled to stay in the workforce are now working and adding new and better chapters to their lives. These stories show clearly in the job market data. Employment gains have been broad based across all racial and ethnic groups and all levels of educational attainment as well as among people with disabilities.
The strong labor market is also encouraging more people in their prime working years—ages 25 to 54—to rejoin or remain in the labor force, meaning that they either have a job or are actively looking for one. This is a welcome development. For several decades up until the mid-1990s, the share of prime-age people in the labor force rose, as an influx of women more than offset some decline in male participation.")
Governor Michelle W. Bowman
Closing Remarks
October 2019
("Certainly, we take diversity and inclusion issues to heart at the Federal Reserve. We believe that the best ideas, policies and, ultimately, service to the public are the result of diverse perspectives, and from a staff that reflects the rich diversity of our nation. Inclusion makes us stronger by providing all employees the assurance that they will be working in an environment that welcomes and values their differences, and that recognizes and rewards people according to the contributions they make in advancing the mission of the organization. That is not to say that we have all of the solutions, or that we do not have considerable progress to make. But we have made efforts in a number of areas. These efforts are consistent with the Congressional directive to establish the Office of Minority and Women Inclusion, and as articulated in the Board of Governors' Strategic Plan for Diversity and Inclusion.
First, we have made a commitment, and have made progress, to make our institution more diverse. That includes efforts to bring greater diversity to the Board of Directors of our Federal Reserve Banks and Branches as well as to senior leadership in the Federal Reserve System. We have also worked to improve our internal culture. These efforts include re-establishing and strengthening employee resource groups. We are working to come up with codes of conduct including efforts to make our meetings more inclusive and set rules around behavior in seminars. We are also providing diversity and inclusion as well as bystander training to both new and existing employees.
Second, we have broadened our reach in recruiting to provide a more diverse range of applicants the opportunity to apply for positions at the Federal Reserve—through strengthening our connections to schools that serve diverse populations, hiring an outreach specialist for these communities, establishing a stronger presence at career fairs for diverse students, and hosting career events for students to promote jobs in economics and finance at the Federal Reserve.
Third, we are working with high schools and universities to inspire students' interest in economics and finance. We are also working to provide them with the tools they need to enter these fields. This has included partnerships with local high schools to teach economics, and with a local Historically Black University, Howard University, to teach and mentor students in economics and statistical analysis. This last initiative has led to students developing an interest and pursuing careers in economics, including as research assistants at the Federal Reserve, and several are currently employed at the Board as research assistants.
Of course, these conferences are also an important part of addressing diversity and inclusion in central banking, and the economics and finance professions. I look forward to welcoming all of you to Washington next fall to attend the third such conference, hosted by the Federal Reserve. We hope these conferences will inspire further work on these important topics and will highlight the issues that researchers are addressing, and more broadly promote the conversations we are having in the economic and finance professions.")
Vice Chair Richard H. Clarida
The Federal Reserve's Review of Its Monetary Policy Strategy, Tools, and Communication Practices
September 2019
("The strong job gains of recent years also have delivered benefits to groups that have historically been disadvantaged in the labor market. For example, African Americans and Hispanics have experienced persistently higher unemployment rates than whites for many decades. However, those unemployment rate gaps have narrowed as the labor market has strengthened, and, as President Daly's research shows, there is some indication these groups especially benefit when the unemployment rate remains very low. Likewise, the gaps between unemployment rates for less-educated workers and their more-educated counterparts appear to narrow as the labor market strengthens. Wage increases in the past couple of years have been strongest for less-educated workers and for those at the lower end of the wage distribution.")
Chair Jerome H. Powell
Challenges for Monetary Policy
August 2019
("The unemployment rate has fallen steadily throughout the expansion and has been near half-century lows since early 2018. But that rate alone does not fully capture the benefits of this historically strong job market. Labor force participation by people in their prime working years has been rising. While unemployment for minorities generally remains higher than for the workforce as a whole, the rate for African Americans, at 6 percent, is the lowest since the government began tracking it in 1972. For the past few years, wages have been increasing the most for people at the lower end of the wage scale. People who live and work in low- and middle-income communities tell us that this job market is the best anyone can recall. We increasingly hear reports that employers are training workers who lack required skills, adapting jobs to the needs of employees with family responsibilities, and offering second chances to people who need one.
Thus, after a decade of progress toward maximum employment and price stability, the economy is close to both goals. Our challenge now is to do what monetary policy can do to sustain the expansion so that the benefits of the strong jobs market extend to more of those still left behind, and so that inflation is centered firmly around 2 percent.")
Chair Jerome H. Powell
Monetary Policy in the Post-Crisis Era
July 2019
("The U.S. economy is now in its 11th consecutive year of growth. Unemployment has steadily declined from its 10 percent post-crisis peak and has now remained at or below 4 percent for more than a year, the longest stretch in a half century. A strong labor market with plentiful job openings has supported labor force participation. After rising only grudgingly early in the recovery, wages have moved up the past few years. Some groups, such as African Americans, Hispanics, and rural Americans, continue to face long-standing challenges, but the benefits of this strong job market are increasingly widely shared. At outreach events we are holding across the United States, we are hearing loud and clear that this long recovery is now benefiting low- and moderate-income communities to a greater extent than has been felt for decades. Many people who have struggled to stay in the workforce are now getting an opportunity to add new and better chapters to their life stories.")
Vice Chair Richard H. Clarida
The Federal Reserve's Review of Its Monetary Policy Strategy, Tools, and Communication Practices
July 2019
("The strong job gains of recent years also have delivered benefits to groups that have historically been disadvantaged in the labor market. For example, African Americans and Hispanics have experienced persistently higher unemployment rates than whites for many decades. However, those unemployment rate gaps have narrowed as the labor market has strengthened, and there is some indication of an extra benefit to these groups as the unemployment rate moves into very low territory. Likewise, although unemployment rates for less-educated workers are persistently higher than they are for their more-educated counterparts, such gaps appear to narrow as the labor market strengthens. And wage increases in the past couple of years have been strongest for less-educated workers and for those at the lower end of the wage distribution.")
Governor Lael Brainard
The Disconnect between Inflation and Employment in the New Normal
May 2019
("Like the overall unemployment rate, broader measures of labor market slack are also lower than their pre-crisis levels. The Bureau of Labor Statistics' U-6 measure shows that two groups have recently shrunk to pre-crisis levels after rising considerably during the recession: those working part time who would prefer full-time employment and people marginally attached to the labor force who have looked for work in the previous year but stopped looking more recently. The strong labor market is leading to employment gains among workers with disabilities. Research suggests it may be helping to narrow some of the long-standing disparities for some racial minorities, although this development is tentative and modest.")
Governor Lael Brainard
Is the Middle Class within Reach for Middle-Income Families?
May 2019
("This challenge is compounded for some racial and ethnic minority groups that have experienced large and persistent racial gaps in wealth. In 2016, the average wealth of white households ($933,700) was seven times the average wealth of black households ($138,200) and five times that of Hispanic households ($191,200). Even among households at the middle of the income distribution, the average wealth in 2016 of white households ($277,200) was roughly one and a half times that of black households ($179,700) and nearly three times that of Hispanic households ($95,400). Differences in educational attainment cannot fully account for these disparities: The average wealth of black households in which the head had a bachelor's degree ($271,200) was 26 percent less than that of white households in which the head did not attend college ($367,800).
This matters not least because disparities in wealth often are inherited. The prospects that a young person will reach the middle class often depend on attributes he or she inherits—such as the income, wealth, education, age, race, and ethnicity of his or her parents. Beyond financial wealth, children inherit intangible assets that affect their ability to access information and social networks that help in obtaining jobs and taking advantage of educational and other wealth-building opportunities.")
Governor Lael Brainard
The Community Reinvestment Act: How Can We Preserve What Works and Make it Better?
March 2019
("The CRA was one of several landmark pieces of legislation to address inequities in the credit markets in the wake of the civil rights movement. The Fair Housing Act of 1968 and the Equal Credit Opportunity Act of 1974 addressed lending discrimination in mortgage and consumer credit based on race, sex, and other personal characteristics, while the Home Mortgage Disclosure Act (HMDA) of 1975 and later amendments recognized the importance of data in making these laws enforceable. In 1977, Congress passed the CRA to address the credit needs of low- and moderate-income neighborhoods. With the passage of the CRA, Congress aimed to reverse the urban disinvestment from years of government policies and market actions that deprived lower-income areas of credit by redlining--using red-inked lines to set apart neighborhoods that were deemed too risky.")
Chair Jerome H. Powell
Recent Economic Developments and Longer-Term Challenges
February 2019
("Beginning with the here and now, Congress has charged the Federal Reserve with achieving maximum employment and stable prices, two objectives that together are called the dual mandate. I am pleased to say that, judged against these goals, the economy is in a good place. The current economic expansion has been under way for almost 10 years. This long period of growth has pushed the unemployment rate down near historic lows. The employment gains have been broad based across all racial and ethnic groups and all levels of educational attainment as well as among the disabled. And while the unemployment rate for African Americans and Hispanics remains above the rates for whites and Asians, the disparities have narrowed appreciably as the economic expansion has continued.
Turning to those aged 25 to 54, the participation picture is more troubling. Among prime-age men, participation has been falling for more than 60 years, with the decline averaging about 1.5 percentage points per decade. For women, participation rose over the second half of the 20th century until peaking in the late 1990s. Since then, women's participation has dropped just a bit.
To put these numbers in context, let's look at data from other advanced economies. Prime-age male participation has fallen some across most of these economies since 1995. But the decline in the United States has been much larger than most, and U.S. participation was below the middle of the pack at the outset. As a result, the United States now has the fourth lowest participation rate among 34 advanced economies. For women's participation, the details are different, but the bottom line is similar. In the mid-1990s, the United States ranked in the upper tier for prime-age women's participation, but since then participation by women has advanced rapidly in many countries while it has declined slightly in the United States. Now the United States is sixth lowest among these 34 countries.")
Governor Lael Brainard
Is Economics for Me? Increasing the Participation of Black Women in Economics
February 2019
("Let me start by making two observations about economics. First, the field of economics is rooted in evidence and research. The second observation follows strongly from the research and the evidence: Economics has a diversity challenge.
There is a stubbornly persistent lack of diversity in the economics profession. Year after year, minorities and women are underrepresented in the pool of individuals awarded a doctorate in economics in the United States relative to their share in the broader population, and the gap is especially acute for women of color. The American Economic Association reports that in the 2016-17 academic year, seven black/African American women were awarded a doctorate in economics in the United States, along with eight black/African American men, out of a total pool of 1,150 economics Ph.D.'s awarded overall.
The economics diversity gap starts even earlier. As Amanda Bayer and David Wilcox have documented, women and minorities are also underrepresented in undergraduate economics programs. From 2011 to 2015, women accounted for only 31 percent of undergraduate degrees in economics--substantially below their 57 percent share of all four-year undergraduate degrees. For black women, the gap is even bigger: they accounted for 1.5 percent of undergraduate economics degrees compared with a 6.2 percent share of all undergraduate degrees.
To achieve our goals, we will need to improve the diversity of the economics ecosystem more broadly. Of course, the Federal Reserve System hires people with all kinds of expertise--from lawyers to law enforcement, from financial analysts to data scientists. But our footprint is especially large in the economics job market, where as a System we routinely hire one of every 25 newly minted economics Ph.D.'s each year. In short, we have a significant stake in the diversity and vibrancy of the economics profession overall.")
Chair Jerome H. Powell
Encouraging Economic Development in High-Poverty Rural Communities
February 2019
("Today, data at the national level show a strong economy. Unemployment is near a half-century low, and economic output is growing at a solid pace. But we know that prosperity has not been felt as much in some areas, including many rural places. The Federal Reserve can help by carrying out our monetary policy mission of supporting maximum employment and price stability. We also support strong communities by conducting research, promoting community development, and enforcing laws like the Community Reinvestment Act, which helps ensure that people have adequate access to financial services wherever they live. We not only work with communities, we are in communities, through the presence of our 12 regional Reserve Banks.")
Vice Chair Richard H. Clarida
Monetary Policy Outlook for 2019
January 2019
("The labor market remains healthy, with an unemployment rate near the lowest level recorded in 50 years and with average monthly job gains continuing to outpace the increases needed over the longer run to provide employment for new entrants to the labor force. Moreover, the declines in the unemployment rate have been widespread across racial and ethnic minority groups, though gaps for African Americans and Hispanics relative to whites remain sizable. At 3.9 percent, the overall unemployment rate is below the median of FOMC participants' estimates of its full employment level of 4.4 percent. That said, the participants' median estimate of u* has been falling for several years as strong employment gains have not triggered a worrying rise in price inflation.")