, Columnist
If Companies Won’t Raise Pay, Lawmakers Will Try to Do It for Them
Those attempts will most likely be implausible and ill-advised. Just ask Jerome Powell.
The Fed is not in the wage business.
Photographer: Aaron P. Bernstein/BloombergThis article is for subscribers only.
If U.S. companies needed more evidence that scrutiny around wages is intensifying, they heard it this week during Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s testimony to Congress.
The subject came up several times. One memorable exchange was with Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio. He asked Powell whether the “Fed’s employment mandate is just to ensure that people are employed” or whether full employment implies something more, that “workers earn a salary and benefits that let them fully participate in the 2019 economy and our country.”