Epi Briefing Paper Economic Policy Institute • February 9, 2015 • Briefing Paper #389
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EPI BRIEFING PAPER ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE • FEBRUARY 9, 2015 • BRIEFING PAPER #389 THE FEDERAL RESERVE AND SHARED PROSPERITY Why Working Families Need a Fed that Works for Them BY THOMAS PALLEY ECONOMIC POLICY INSTITUTE • 1333 H STREET, NW • SUITE 300, EAST TOWER • WASHINGTON, DC 20005 • 202.775.8810 • WWW.EPI.ORG Table of contents Introduction and executive summary ........................................................................................................................3 Full employment, shared prosperity, and the Federal Reserve ...................................................................................3 Policy challenges and threats.....................................................................................................................................4 Institutional concerns and policy engagement ..........................................................................................................6 Why the Federal Reserve matters, and why working-family advocates should engage it.........................................6 Full employment, shared prosperity, and the Federal Reserve ..................................................................................3 The Federal Reserve and full employment................................................................................................................8 Irony of the moment and need for a strategy ............................................................................................................8 Policy challenges and threats......................................................................................................................................4 Restore “full employment” monetary policy .............................................................................................................9 Restore quantitative monetary policy......................................................................................................................13 Financial regulation that promotes shared prosperity..............................................................................................15 The Fed and exchange rate policy...........................................................................................................................16 The Fed, budget deficits, and Social Security solvency............................................................................................16 Reverse the biased use of the Fed’s bully pulpit.......................................................................................................17 Institutional architecture..........................................................................................................................................17 Political architecture...............................................................................................................................................17 Geographic architecture .........................................................................................................................................18 Ownership and control architecture .......................................................................................................................20 Functions and policymaking architecture ...............................................................................................................23 Conclusion: Shared prosperity is doubtful without the Fed ...................................................................................28 About the author ......................................................................................................................................................28 Endnotes ...................................................................................................................................................................29 References .................................................................................................................................................................29 EPI BRIEFING PAPER #389 | FEBRUARY 9, 2015 PAGE 2 Introduction and executive summary he Federal Reserve’s policies affect almost every important aspect of the economy. Given the gradual strength- ening of the economy after the Great Recession, there is now talk of normalizing monetary policy and raising T interest rates. That conversation is important, but it is also too narrow and keeps policy locked into a failed status quo. There is need for a larger conversation regarding the entire framework for monetary policy and how central banks can contribute to shared prosperity. It is doubtful the United States can achieve shared prosperity without the pol- icy cooperation of the Fed. This makes activist engagement with the Fed and its policies a matter of the highest impor- tance. Full employment, shared prosperity, and the Federal Reserve Full employment is the bedrock of shared prosperity. Working families need jobs to provide income, and full employ- ment ensures that jobs are available for all. Full employment also creates an environment of labor scarcity in which workers can bargain for a fair share of productivity gains, making full employment essential for decent wages. A major factor behind the wage stagnation of the past 30 years is that the U.S. economy has been far from full employment for most of this time. Full employment is also relevant for union bargaining power, and unions are unlikely to achieve their principal institu- tional objectives—organizing and bargaining—without full employment. Consequently, full employment should be a major concern of unions for reasons of both social solidarity and institutional interest. Federal Reserve policy is absolutely critical for attainment of full employment, and the Fed is legally mandated to pursue policies that promote maximum employment with price stability. However, it has not been doing so for the past 35 years, preferring to emphasize price stability (i.e., inflation) on grounds that full employment will take care of itself if inflation is low and stable. The Fed’s retreat from full employment has been part of a general retreat by the Washington policy establishment, including both Republicans and elite Democrats who control the Democratic Party. The labor movement and working- family activists must wholeheartedly embrace the issue of full employment and compel both Washington and the Fed to make it the nation’s foremost economic priority. There is an irony to the current moment. Even though the Fed has failed in the past to live up to its obligations, it is now the only major Washington policy institution that is even tipping its hat to the issue of full employment. Though the Fed should be credited for its new awareness, it is critical not to forget its past inclinations. Those inclinations remain very much alive within the institution and ready to surface. Labor and working-family activists need a strategy to ensure the Fed’s renewed concern with full employment is trans- lated into policies that deliver. The strategy should have an inside and outside dimension. The inside dimension entails constructive informed engagement at a senior level within the Federal Reserve System. The outside dimension requires bringing popular pressure from Main Street to Congress to bear on the Fed. EPI BRIEFING PAPER #389 | FEBRUARY 9, 2015 PAGE 3 The strategy must also go beyond the Fed and into the Democratic Party, which must also come to view full employ- ment as the country’s most important economic policy priority. Democrats must be stripped of the “Clinton fig leaf” of the 1990s. In the late 1990s the United States experienced a brief period of full employment during which wages rose. That period clearly showed the benefits of full employment, but it was bubble-driven and unsustainable. The goal is to insist on sustainable full employment supported by rising wages and real investment. The Clinton fig leaf is a major obstacle because many Democrats invoke the period to justify a return to past policies, despite their having proved unstable and unsustainable. Policy challenges and threats Convincing the Fed to adopt full employment policies requires persuading it to change its policy framework. In the meantime, there is an omnipresent danger that the Fed will prematurely tighten monetary policy in the name of pre- venting inflation, despite the fact the economy is far away from full employment. To lay the foundation for full employ- ment, the Fed should adhere to the following precepts: Rehabilitate full employment as the country’s foremost policy priority. The central policy challenge is to reha- bilitate full employment as the preeminent policy priority. That raises the question of defining full employment. Paraphrasing Supreme Court Justice Potter Stewart, full employment is difficult to define, but you know it when you see it. Full employment is likely attained when the unemployment rate is low, job vacancies are plentiful so workers can find jobs easily, the inflation rate is around 3 percent, and real wages are rising at the rate of productiv- ity growth. For the United States, such a configuration of outcomes is associated with unemployment rates below 5 percent. That happened in 2007 and the late 1990s, and before that in the early 1970s, which shows how rare full employment has been—and how far away it still is. Abandon the 2 percent inflation target. A second policy challenge is to get the Fed to abandon its 2 percent infla- tion target. A large multi-sector