Yellen Wants to Put People Back to Work

The year was 1999, the unemployment rate was 4.3 percent, and President Bill Clinton’s top economic adviser had a message for economists gathered at Yale University: Tight labor markets, in which the demand for workers is high, are beneficial for blacks, Hispanics, and male high school dropouts.

The speaker was Janet Yellen, and she brings the same focus on the disadvantaged to her new job as chair of the Federal Reserve. During a ceremony after she took office, she said the jobless rate represents “millions of individuals who are eager to work.” Every position that’s created “lifts this burden for someone who is better equipped to be a good parent, to build a stronger community.” In her first 100 days as the Fed’s new boss, Yellen has amplified the central bank’s full-employment goal. She’s talked about the need for reducing the broadest measures of unemployment, such as the long-term jobless and people who work only part time.