Ahead of the Federal Open Market Committee meeting, Dr. Lindsay Owens, executive director of Groundwork Collaborative, delivered keynote remarks at the Fed Up Campaign’s “Stakeout for Full Employment.” Dr. Owens urged the Federal Reserve to fulfill its mandate of full employment – or risk jeopardizing our strong labor market recovery:
“This week, the Federal Reserve faces an important choice: whether to keep a long-term policy focus on full employment and build an economy that works for all of us – or take overly aggressive action that will push our economy into a recession and send unemployment skyrocketing. Let’s hope they make the right choice.”
Read Dr. Owens’ full remarks at the Fed Up press conference here. For press inquiries about the Fed’s full employment mandate, interest rate hikes, and the predictable negative consequences of aggressive rate hikes for workers and families, please contact press@groundworkcollaborative.org.
Key excerpts from Lindsay Owens’ remarks (delivered June 14, 2022 outside the Federal Reserve Board Building):
“I’m here to share a simple message: raising interest rates alone is not going to fix the inflation crisis – but it will undermine our economic recovery.”
“This inflation crisis is not a pandemic blip – it is decades in the making – the result of policy choices that weakened our supply chains and our economy, and prioritized giant companies over workers and consumers. And none of this is going to be reversed with a 50 basis point hike, or even a 75-point one.”
“For some proponents of rate hikes, slowing wage growth is actually the whole point. In fact, Larry Summers, the architect of the jobless recovery, recently told the Washington Post that he didn’t think we could fix inflation without a ‘meaningful reduction in wage growth.’ Let me quickly translate that for those who aren’t following economist jargon: Larry Summers wants to fix inflation by making you poorer.”
“We can all agree that getting inflation under control should be a top priority for our leaders. But interest rate hikes have failed us historically, they’ve failed us so far this year – and there is little evidence to suggest we can expect anything different in the future.”
“It’s time for the Fed to take its mandate for full employment and decent wages seriously. That means everyone who wants a job can have a job – period.”