Janet Yellen Quotations

This suggests a presumption that the rate (now at 3.75 percent) will need to be raised further,

When you're unemployed for six months or a year, it is hard to qualify for a lease, so even the option of relocating to find a job is often off the table.

Although most Americans apparently loathe inflation, Yale economists have argued that a little inflation may be necessary to grease the wheels of the labor market and enable efficiency-enhancing changes in relative pay to occur without requiring nominal wage cuts by workers.

In 1977, when I started my first job at the Federal Reserve Board as a staff economist in the Division of International Finance, it was an article of faith in central banking that secrecy about monetary policy decisions was the best policy: Central banks, as a rule, did not discuss these decisions, let alone their future policy intentions.

We do not interpret bitcoin's popularity as having a relationship with the public's view of the Federal Reserve's conduct of monetary policy

One common way of judging whether housing's price is in line with its fundamental value is to consider the ratio of housing prices to rents. This is analogous to the ratio of prices to dividends for stocks.

Firms don't just try to pay as little as possible to get the needed bodies on board; when there is unemployment, they ask themselves how wage cuts would affect the behavior of the employees. Would they quit or feel dissatisfied and work less hard on the firm's behalf if they feel that wage policies are unfair?

The lower half of households by wealth held just 3% of wealth in 1989 and only 1% in 2013.

After adjusting for inflation, the average income of the top 5% of households grew by 38% from 1989 to 2013. …By comparison, the average real income of the other 95% of households grew less than 10%.

By some estimates, income and wealth inequality are near their highest levels in the past hundred years, much higher than the average during that time span and probably higher than for much of American history before then.

Are deviations from full employment a social problem? Obviously.

I am anxious to fix welfare. There has to be more training and child care.

Stores don't order merchandise unless they think they can sell it right away. Manufacturers and builders don't produce unless they have buyers lined up. My business contacts describe this as a paradigm shift and they believe it's permanent.

Individuals out of work for an extended period can become less employable as they lose the specific skills acquired in their previous jobs and also lose the habits needed to hold down any job.

[A] major source of wealth for many families is financial assets, including stocks, bonds, mutual funds, and private pensions. ...the wealthiest 5 percent of households held nearly two-thirds of all such assets in 2013

We need to increase the transparency of shadow banking markets so that authorities can monitor for signs of excessive leverage and unstable maturity transformation outside regulated banks.

In the long run, outsourcing is another form of trade that benefits the U.S. economy by giving us cheaper ways to do things.

The average net worth of the lower half of the distribution, representing 62 million households, was $11,000 in 2013. About one-fourth of these families reported zero wealth or negative net worth, and a significant fraction of those said they were '‘underwater' on their home mortgages, owing more than the value of the home. This $11,000 average is 50% lower than the average wealth of the lower half of families in 1989, adjusted for inflation.

The bottom line for housing is that the concerns we used to hear about the possibility of a devastating collapse—one that might be big enough to cause a recession in the U.S. economy—while not fully allayed have diminished. Moreover, while the future for housing activity remains uncertain, I think there is a reasonable chance that housing is in the process of stabilizing, which would mean that it would put a considerably smaller drag on the economy going forward.

Strapped by tight credit and plummeting sales, businesses have overhauled the way they manage supply chains, inventory, production practices and staffing.

My bottom line is that monetary policy should react to rising prices for houses or other assets only insofar as they affect the central bank's goal variables - output, employment, and inflation.

Productivity growth, however it occurs, has a disruptive side to it. In the short term, most things that contribute to productivity growth are very painful.

Prospects for growth in the year ahead are solid at the national level, and of course, this can only be good news for the Bay Area and California as well. The U. S. economy has shown remarkable resilience in the face of some severe shocks - in particular, the surge in energy prices that began a couple of years ago and the devastation wrought by the twin hurricanes last summer.

The distribution of wealth is even more unequal than that of income. ...The wealthiest 5% of American households held 54% of all wealth reported in the 1989 survey. Their share rose to 61% in 2010 and reached 63% in 2013. By contrast, the rest of those in the top half of the wealth distribution —families that in 2013 had a net worth between $81,000 and $1.9 million —held 43% of wealth in 1989 and only 36% in 2013.

I would be strongly committed to working with the FOMC to continue promoting a robust economic recovery ... I consider it imperative that we do what we can to promote a very strong recovery.

Inequality has risen to the point that it seems to me worthwhile for the U.S. to seriously consider taking the risk of making our economy more rewarding for more of the people.

I'm just opposed to a pure inflation-only mandate in which the only thing a central bank cares about is inflation and not employment.

The past few decades of widening inequality can be summed up as significant income and wealth gains for those at the very top and stagnant living standards for the majority

Will capitalist economies operate at full employment in the absence of routine intervention? Certainly not,

To me, a wise and humane policy is occasionally to let inflation rise even when inflation is running above target.

Long-term unemployment can make any worker progressively less employable, even after the economy strengthens.

In government institutions and in teaching, you need to inspire confidence. To achieve credibility, you have to very clearly explain what you are doing and why. The same principles apply to businesses.

It slightly worries me that when people find a problem, they rush to judgment of what to do.

For my own part, I did not see and did not appreciate what the risks were with securitization, the credit ratings agencies, the shadow banking system, the S.I.V.’s — I didn’t see any of that coming until it happened.

If it were possible to take interest rates into negative territory I would be voting for that.

Listening to others, especially those with whom we disagree, tests our own ideas and beliefs. It forces us to recognize, with humility, that we don't have a monopoly on the truth.

I think it is appropriate to ask whether this trend is compatible with values rooted in our nation's history, among them the high value Americans have traditionally placed on equality of opportunity.

Models used to describe and predict inflation commonly distinguish between changes in food and energy prices - which enter into total inflation - and movements in the prices of other goods and services - that is, core inflation.

One option that is clearly not on the table is allowing an unacceptable rise in inflation,

I wouldn't say we're completely out of the woods just yet. Indeed there are some issues that have the potential to be troublesome going forward.

Certainly, analyses do indicate that house prices are abnormally high --- that there is a 'bubble' element, even accounting for factors that would support high house prices, such as low mortgage interest rates. So a reversal is certainly a possibility.

Business students are very oriented to playing a role in the real world and accomplishing something, not training themselves to be scholars and contribute to the literature. Teaching in that kind of environment has focused me much more on the real world, how pieces of the theory I know can be applied to real-world situations.

has little scope to cushion the immediate economic fallout from such a severe and sudden blow to a region.

I wouldn't be surprised to see core PCE inflation actually fall a bit over the next two years

Labor force participation peaked in early 2000, so its decline began well before the Great Recession. A portion of that decline clearly relates to the aging of the baby boom generation. But the pace of decline accelerated with the recession.

I support the idea of a quantitative objective for price stability.

Nationally, the share of mortgages that are underwater fell by about one-half between 2011 and 2014.

We do need to be careful about overshooting.

While admirers of capitalism, we also to a certain extent believe it has limitations that require government intervention in markets to make them work.

Transparency concerning the Federal Reserve's conduct of monetary policy is desirable because better public understanding enhances the effectiveness of policy. More important, however, is that transparent communications reflect the Federal Reserve's commitment to accountability within our democratic system of government.

Those of you who lived through the 1970s will remember that higher oil prices touched off a wage-price spiral that pushed inflation into double-digit territory.

Those of you who lived through the 1970's will remember that higher oil prices touched off a wage-price spiral that pushed inflation into double-digit territory,

You are seeing some pass through of high energy and commodity prices, import prices, into core inflation.

We all remember the bad old days of the 1970s ... the Fed's response went down as one of the greatest monetary policy mistakes in my lifetime,

We all remember the bad old days of the 1970s ... It is stamped on the mind of central bankers,

This sector has been a key source of strength in the current expansion, and the concern is that, if house prices fell, the negative impact on household wealth could lead to a pullback in consumer spending.

Uncertainty about sales impedes business planning and could harm capital formation just as much as uncertainty about inflation can create uncertainty about relative prices and harm business planning.

The principle that a central bank, charged with controlling inflation, should be independent from the government is unassailable. It may also be true that it's easier for the central bank to guard its independence from political pressure when it mainly holds government securities.

Estimates of the extent of spending are escalating, and the recovery and bounce-back, fueled by massive fiscal stimulus, could propel the U.S. economy on an unsustainable upward trajectory,

There's more of the same on the horizon of good times. There's no obvious reason for the good times to end.

I see no evidence of feedbacks from energy prices to wage bargaining. The risk, though, is that, without appropriate policy, we could see a repetition of the '70s-type dynamic.

I see no evidence of feedbacks from energy prices to wage bargaining, ... The risk, though, is that, without appropriate policy, we could see a repetition of the 70's type dynamic.

Productivity depends on many factors, including our workforce's knowledge and skills and the quantity and quality of the capital, technology, and infrastructure that they have to work with.

Our approach during this phase must be particularly dependent on information from incoming data,

People stop buying things, and that is how you turn a slowdown into a recession.

A crucial responsibility of any central bank is to control inflation, the average rate of increase in the prices of a broad group of goods and services.

A credible inflation objective could...enhance the flexibility of monetary policy to respond to the real effects of adverse shocks.

There were a lot of economists at the Fed who thought not tightening back then was very dangerous. The great accomplishment of the Greenspan Fed was recognizing that productivity growth would allow the economy to grow at a faster rate.

A clear lesson of history is that a 'sine qua non' for sustained economic recovery following a financial crisis is a thoroughgoing repair of the financial system.

Food and energy account for a significant portion of household budgets, so the Federal Reserve's inflation objective is defined in terms of the overall change in consumer prices.

suggests that the economy has been remarkably resilient and apt to remain on a solid track.

I view decisions about the stance of policy going forward as quite data-dependent. On the one hand, I will be alert to any incoming data suggesting that economic growth is less likely to slow to a sustainable pace or that inflation is less likely to remain contained.

It thus made sense to me to continue the gradual removal of policy accommodation

They will simply be engaged in discussions of the Indonesian situation, and attempting to assess how things are going there and emphasizing the President's resolve that Indonesia take the necessary structural steps the IMF believes are necessary for recovery,

At the federal level, the fiscal stimulus of 2008 and 2009 supported economic output, but the effects of that stimulus faded; by 2011, federal fiscal policy actions became a drag on output growth when the recovery was still weak.

At this stage, wage and salary growth seems quite well contained, and I see no evidence of feedbacks from energy prices to wage bargaining,

The Fed has and must have a commitment to price stability. The uncertainties on the upside (for inflation) have only gotten bigger since Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast,

The Fed has and must have a commitment to price stability, ... The uncertainties on the upside (for inflation) have only gotten bigger since Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast.

The Fed has and must have a commitment to price stability,

The Federal Reserve's objectives of maximum employment and price stability do not, by themselves, ensure a strong pace of economic growth or an improvement in living standards. The most important factor determining living standards is productivity growth, defined as increases in how much can be produced in an hour of work.

The Federal Reserve ranks among the most transparent central banks. We publish a summary of our balance sheet every week. Our financial statements are audited annually by an outside auditor and made public. Every security we hold is listed on the website of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

The Federal Reserve must deliver -- again and again -- on its commitment to price stability,

The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is committed to policies that promote maximum employment and price stability, consistent with our mandate from Congress.

Indeed, only 10 percent of American workers are in manufacturing, which is arguably the sector most exposed to foreign competition.

Inequality has risen to the point that it seems to me worthwhile for the U.S. to seriously consider taking the risk of making our economy more rewarding for more of the people.

In the five years since the end of the Great Recession, the economy has made considerable progress in recovering from the largest and most sustained loss of employment in the United States since the Great Depression.

In the long run, outsourcing is another form of trade that benefits the U.S. economy by giving us cheaper ways to do things.

Higher oil prices may be partly passed through to core inflation at least for a time,

I consider it reasonable to put the current neutral rate in a range of 3.5 percent to 5.5 percent.

I consider us to be in a range where further moves depend on how the data transpires, but I don't see weakness out there yet.

The uncertainties on the upside (for inflation) have only gotten bigger since Katrina slammed into the Gulf Coast.

The trust institutions have in the marketplace, the confidence customers and suppliers and workers and employees have, are very important to a business's effectiveness.

The growing capacity of foreign countries to supply goods and services to the U.S. market has impacted the structure of wages and the bargaining power of workers.