December 16, 2020 FOMC Press Conference

Press conference

CHAIR POWELL. Good afternoon. At the Federal Reserve, we are strongly committed to achieving the monetary policy goals that Congress has given us—maximum employment and price stability. Since the beginning of the pandemic, we have taken forceful actions to provide relief and stability, to ensure that the recovery will be as strong as possible, and to limit lasting damage to the economy. Today my colleagues on the FOMC and I reaffirmed our strong forward guidance for interest rates and also provided additional guidance for our asset purchases. Together, these measures will ensure that monetary policy will continue to deliver powerful support to the economy until the recovery is complete.

Economic activity has continued to recover from its depressed second-quarter level. The substantial reopening of the economy led to a rapid rebound in activity, and real GDP rose at an annual rate of 33 percent in the third quarter. In recent months, however, the pace of improvement has moderated. Household spending on goods, especially durable goods, has been strong and has moved above its pre-pandemic level. In contrast, spending on services remains low, especially in sectors that typically require people to gather closely, including travel and hospitality. The overall rebound in household spending owes in part to federal stimulus payments and expanded unemployment benefits, which provided essential support to many families and individuals. The housing sector has fully recovered from the downturn, supported in part by low mortgage interest rates. Business investment has also picked up. The recovery has progressed more quickly than generally expected, and forecasts from FOMC participants for economic growth this year have been revised up since our September Summary of Economic Projections. Even so, overall economic activity remains well below its level before the pandemic, and the path ahead remains highly uncertain.

In the labor market, more than half of the 22 million jobs that were lost in March and April have been regained, as many people were able to return to work. As with overall economic activity, the pace of improvement in the labor market has moderated. Job growth slowed to 245,000 in November, and while the unemployment rate has continued to decline, it remains elevated at 6.7 percent. Participation in the labor market remains notably below pre-pandemic levels. Although there has been much progress in the labor market since the spring, we will not lose sight of the millions of Americans who remain out of work. Looking ahead, FOMC participants project the unemployment rate to continue to decline; the median projection is 5 percent at the end of next year and moves below 4 percent by 2023. The economic downturn has not fallen equally on all Americans, and those least able to shoulder the burden have been the hardest hit. In particular, the high level of joblessness has been especially severe for lower-wage workers in the service sector and for African Americans and Hispanics. The economic dislocation has upended many lives and created great uncertainty about the future.