The Federal Reserve : Inflation And Employry Policy In The United States

The Federal Reserve has the dual job of ensuring price stability and maximum employment, which are contradictory objectives. The Feds try to achieve the goals through monetary policy which determines the demand and supply of money by controlling interest rates. The Fed’s goal is to achieve a natural rate of unemployment of more or less 5%. When the actual unemployment figures are below the natural rate of unemployment, inflation increases and there is a high demand of goods and services propelling the economy with the ensuing labor demands and the pressure it places on wages, which in turn produces inflation. When the Fed is faced with this scenario, it must increase the rates to slow the growth and achieve price stability (contractionary cycle).

Our economy is a machine that is ran by humans. A machine can only be as good as the person who makes it. This makes our economy susceptible to human error. A couple years ago the United States faced one of the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, which was the Great Recession. The Great Recession was a severe economic downturn that occurred in 2008 following the burst of the housing market. The government tried passing bills to see if anything would help it from becoming another Great Depression. Trying to aid the government was the Federal Reserve. The Federal Reserve went through a couple strategies in order to help the economy recover. The Federal Reserve provided three major strategies to start moving the economy in a better direction. The first strategy was primarily focused on the central bank’s role of the lender of last resort. The second strategy was meant to provide provision of liquidity directly to borrowers and investors in key credit markets. The last strategy was for the Federal Reserve to expand its open market operations to support the credit markets still working, as well as trying to push long term interest rates down. Since time has passed on since the Great Recession it has been a long road. In this essay we will take a time to reflect on these strategies to see how they helped.

By law, the Federal Reserve conducts monetary policy to achieve its macroeconomic objectives of stable prices and maximum employment. The Federal Open Market Committee usually conducts policy by adjusting the level of short-term interest rates in response to changes in the outlook of the economy. Since 2008, the FOMC has also used large-scale purchases of Treasury securities and securities that were guaranteed or issued by federal agencies as a policy tool in an effort to lower longer-term interest rates and thereby improve financial conditions and so support the economic recovery (What).

The Federal Reserve should utilize a balanced approach to monetary policy. The current state of the economy—undershot employment and inflation goals—presents no conflict in achieving a neutral state. In fact any action that supports employment growth also moves inflation up toward our target (Evan

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke 's meeting dealt mainly with the issues that could stabilize the economy after the great recession. After creating a number of policies to fight the 2008 crisis, Chairman 's move to further reduce Quantitative Easing was a bit of a disappointment. The Fed will reduce its purchases of long-term Treasuries and mortgage-backed securities by another $10 billion a month. Apart from this, Fed is going to concentrate on maximizing employment rates, stabilizing prices and interest rates.

Eric Rosengren, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, and John Williams, President of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, have both been known as “doves” in their individual monetary policy opinions and votes over the last five years. Since the summer of 2015, there has been a notable change in Rosengren’s rhetoric in the pursuit of normalization to the point where Rosengren is now actively suggesting an increase in interest rates in the very near future in order to promote growth in the economy, and as of the FOMC meeting on September 21st, 2016, was one of three dissenting votes (out of ten) for keeping rates low. Rosengren supports his new change of face with factors that will be discussed at length in this paper such as the pace of growth, the up-sides to higher rates, and the danger lurking in a prolonged low-rate economy. In similar (but not identical) fashion, John Williams is turning to the belief that rate hikes will be necessary sooner, rather than later if the Fed wishes to continue to spur growth in the United States economy, as opposed to letting the economy overheat into recession. Williams supports this point with evidence similar to Rosengren involving the pace of growth, the upside to higher rates, and the danger lurking in a prolonged low-rate economy. Eric Rosengren’s recent flip provides an interesting vantage point on both camps in the Federal Reserve. By comparing and contrasting the rhetoric of Rosengren (a former dove) and Williams

The primary objective of the Federal Reserve is to stabilize the monetary environment. The Federal Reserve has focused on achieving price stability and maximum employment while avoiding a recession. Within the goals of the dual mandate, the Fed encourages a target inflation rate of 2 percent and the unemployment rate between 4.5 percent and 5.0 percent to maintain a healthy economy. As of today, the inflation rate is 2.3 percent and the unemployment rate is 4.2 percent.

United States Federal Reserve system, also known as Federal Reserve or simply “Fed” is the United States central banking system. The Federal Reserve took inception in 1913, after the adoption of the Federal Reserve Act. The United States Congress has mandated three macroeconomic objectives to the Federal Reserve. These are minimum levels of unemployment, prices stability and keeping in check the rates of interests. Over the years, the role of Federal Reserve has expanded. It now formulates the country’s monetary policies, conducts supervision and regulation of the banking institutions, maintenance of the financial

To stabilize the economy bonds are used which release money into the market. The responsibility of the Central Bank is to maintain the health of the banking system and regulating the purchase and sale of bonds. The interest rates are controlled to balance the markets. According to the Monetary Policy Report to Congress, “The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) maintained a target range of 0 to ¼ percent for the federal funds rate throughout the second half of 2009 and early 2010” while representing forecasted economic decisions to rationalize low levels for longer times on the federal funds rate (Federal Reserve, 2010). Purchases were still being made by the Fed’s to result in improvements to the economy through focusing on mortgages, the real estate market, and the credit market. Predictions by the Federal Open Market Committee depicted low levels on the federal funds rates in early 2010 which would continue for some time while over time the economy would see growth, a rise in inflation, and a decline in unemployment. Feds were in agreement though they expected the recovery process to be slower. Purchases by the Federal reserve were slowed, “$300 billion of Treasury securities were completed by October” and “the purchases of $1.25 trillion of MBS and about $175 billion of agency debt” were suppose to be finished the first quarter of 2010 (Federal Reserve, 2010).

“The Central Bank also raised concerns about the Feds lower interest rate encouraging rising demand for junk bonds and risky real estate investments and shifts in bank balance sheets as areas of concern. Mr. Bernanke said the Fed took these concerns very seriously and noted the central bank had significantly widen its efforts to monitor financial markets as well as greater priority to financial

One of the core mandates of the Federal Reserve is to maintain stable long-term interest rates, and the Fed’s ability to do so is predicated on a well-functioning Treasury market. The Federal Reserve enters the Treasury market when conducting open market operations to match the federal funds rate to the target rate established by the Federal Open Market Committee. During temporary open market operations, the Federal Reserve utilizes repurchase agreements (repos) and reverse repurchase agreements, both forms of collateralized loans, to affect bank reserves and thereby the money supply and short-term interest rates.

On September 18, 2013 the Federal Reserve reaffirmed its view that a highly accommodative stance of monetary policy will remain appropriate for a considerable time after the asset purchase program ends and the economic recovery strengthens. In addition, the committee agreed to continue its monthly $85 billion purchase of Treasury and mortgage-backed securities as long as the unemployment rate remains above 6.5 percent. Inflation between one and two years ahead is projected to be no more than a half percentage point above the Committee's 2 percent longer-run goal and longer-term inflation expectations continue to be well anchored .

“All parenting manuals tell parents to maintain credibility and to set fair and firm rules. Most parents attempt to do so. But as all, or at least most, parents know, sometimes exceptions are necessary. Not all contingencies can be planned for.” Analogous to that, as the author, David Colander, points out is that policies can be created but there can be exceptions to any policy. To begin with, let’s consider the problem that arises from the fact that there is no oversight in the Federal Reserve. In other words, the Fed can do what it wants, i.e. increase or decrease the money supply, because of the discretion it has; almost like saying that police officers have no guidelines to follow and can do whatever they want with all the power their given. Second, the problem that arises out of the fact that the Fed assumes there is only one interest rate; however, there are various different types of interest rates. So this becomes a problem in the short-run but not necessarily in the long run, after the interest rates have averaged out. This means that consumer borrowing (or when banks lend money) they’ll do so differently because of the different interest rates that do exist. Third, exists with what I mentioned about the short-term and long-term effects; essentially, inflation,

The Federal Reserve expressed concern at the sluggish recovery from the worst down-turns since the great depression. It said it would buy long term treasury bills every month till mid 2011. It also pledged to keep interest rates at low levels for an extended period which is seen as commitment to leave borrowing costs unchanged for at least two years according to Wall Street.

The Fed is currently concluding its period of quantitative easing and increasing interest rates thereby potentially tightening the money supply as borrowing and spending will decrease while savings and the rate of inflation increases.