Economics

Powell Hears Americans’ Laments on Job-Market Woes, Supply Chain

  • Fed chair and colleagues probe businesses over hiring, prices
  • Data ‘doesn’t live’ for Fed without hearing from real people
Jerome PowellPhotographer: Stefani Reynolds/Bloomberg
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Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell listened to a litany of ways in which the U.S. economy remains distorted by Covid-19 as he and his colleagues calibrate withdrawing emergency pandemic support.

“I’ve never seen these kind of supply-chain issues, never seen an economy that combines drastic labor shortages with lots of unemployed people and a lot of slack in the labor market,” Powell told a virtual Fed Listens panel Friday.