Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell, seen in 2020, says the pandemic has had an outsize effect on minority workers and women.
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WASHINGTON—Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said Monday that the economic outlook has brightened but is advancing more slowly for low-wage workers, underscoring the need for continued support from policy makers.
The Covid-19 pandemic has had outsize effects on minority workers and women, Mr. Powell said, citing results from a Fed survey that will be released later this month. While 22% of parents either stopped working or worked less in 2020 because of the pandemic’s disruptions to child care or schooling, that figure jumps to 36% and 30% for Black and Hispanic mothers, respectively, he said.
“The Fed is focused on these longstanding disparities because they weigh on the productive capacity of our economy,” Mr. Powell said in prepared remarks for a speech to the National Community Reinvestment Coalition.
He included little commentary on the broader economy in his opening remarks, saying that, while the economic outlook has brightened, “we are not out of the woods yet.”
Fed officials voted unanimously last week to hold interest rates near zero and to continue purchasing at least $120 billion a month of Treasury and mortgage bonds. Those policies, in place since the first half of last year, aim to smooth the economy’s recovery by keeping borrowing costs low.
Write to Paul Kiernan at [email protected] and Andrew Ackerman at [email protected]
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