Janet Yellen Pace Quotations

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.

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.

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.