Helping the Most Vulnerable Avoid Poverty and Unemployment
Pierre Reid, an industrial electrical maintenance student, at the Tennessee College of Applied Technology campus in Smyrna, Tennessee, US, on Thursday, June 8, 2023. Tennessee’s experiment with free technical school, and its close partnerships with business giants like Volkswagen and Nissan, offer hope as Black unemployment rises.
Photographer: Houston Cofield/BloombergThe Fed faces a dilemma with house-price inflation potentially poised for a comeback just as its only tool to fight it threatens to increase unemployment. The poor are the hardest hit by inflation. But they’re also the first thrown out of work when growth stalls. Sometimes the medicine is as bad as the disease. Powell knows he’s walking a fine line — and that’s why this week’s rate hike will likely be its last for a while.
The Fed Chair has told us many times why fighting inflation is so important — because it hurts everyone, particularly those with lower incomes and people living on a fixed income. Jay Powell gets it.