I will start with that right now. Welcome kevin foul today the Federal Reserve chairman will update the committee on Monetary Policy developments and the state of the u. S. Economy. It continues to expand in 200019 exceeding 2 growth for the Third Straight year. As the American People enjoy the longest economic expansion and history. The labor market is strong. Rd with the Unemployment Rate at 3. 6 remaining near half century low. Wages also grew in january by 3. 1 percent from a year earlier. Making it 18 consecutive months that pay has grown. According to gallup trends. Nearly six in ten americans are 59 now say they are better off financially than they were a year ago up from 50 last year. That reform in 2017 and rightsizing regulations including under the Economic Growth and regulatory release have undoubtedly helped fuel the Strong Economy and labor market. Americans are set to benefit even more when considering the effects of the u. S. Embassy a. T despite the substantial progress there are several external factors that could have a meaningful impact. They need to be better understood. Including its recent decision to purchase treasury bills in response to volatility and shortterm borrowing rates. Including potential structural marketbased fixes. Finally the potential impact of the coronavirus on Global Commerce and growth. The fed and other financial agencies recently proposed amendments. In 200019 expending to improve market liquidity. We had raised serious concerns in the past with the agencys Supervisory Examination processes including the use of guidance as rules. In january instead of vice stead vice chairman offered a roadmap to foster transparency in bank supervision. Putting significant supervisory guidance out for Public Comments and submitting it to congress under the congressional review act. Other commonsense improvements to the supervisory process such as rulemaking that would cover the agencys use of guidancey in the supervisory process. This roadmap is greatly encouraging and i urge the steps to go forward. Reduced friction and payments and increase that the delivery of Financial Products and services. A new Stable Currency and leveraging block chain technology. To does explore the development of the currencies especially amid rumors that chinas launch of a digital wand is imminent. The numerous applications of technologies. Identity verification and crossborder transactions. And some Financial Institution adoptions. Se as i hadad stated in the past it seems to me that Technological Innovations are inevitable. They should be leading and developing what the roots of rules of the road should be. We look forward to hearing your thoughts in about the work that the fed is engaged in to appropriately address them. Again, thank you for joining us today. Ur senator brown. Thank you for your assess abilities in the conversations that you head with all of us. Before we start i want to say a few words about what happened last night when we got word that the nomination had been withdrawn. When President Trump withdrew her nomination she was good at appear in front of the committee. The president would be chastened by impeachment. Some of you told mele you knew what that know what that the president did was wrong. You also said publicly that wasnt enough to rise to the removal of office. Many of you asserted. He would not do these things again. It is pretty clear the president of the United States did learn a lesson he can do whatever he wants whenever he ants. He will never be held accountable by the senate. That was a lesson. Since acquittal has gone to retribution. The Prayer Breakfast mind you, continuing through the east room where many of you were in the audience and applauded him as he personally attackedth he removed a patriot and purple heart recipient who spent his life serving our country. He mocked his accent his ukrainian accent. After he testified to the quid pro quo. And yesterday and the reason i bring this up today as he continued the two are interfering at the department of justice strongarming political appointees to overrule career prosecutors. Those attorneys withdrew in protest. They withdrew in protest from ese case and at least in one case resign entirely from the department. You all know it is happening. A personal vengeance operation. No one should be about the law. His behavior will get worse. Now onto the issue at hand. I welcome chairman foul back. Earlier this week they reported on a profitable and fastgrowing spanish company. Theyve opened up branches in 36 states americans who are were struggling to make ends meet. Or trying to put food on the table. Its hard to think of a better metaphor to the trump economy on monday to the s p 500 and nasdaq both reached record highs. Jp morgan chase have the best year. 36million in profits. Big corporations are spending hundreds of billions of dollars on stock buybacks and dividends. The growth the last three years. Has been greater then the growth of the first three years. But if you talk to the vast majority of people who rely on paychecks not investment portfolios you get a very different story. They had been bleeding for years. Most families dont understand thethe harder they work harder it gets to afford pretty much everything childcare, healthcare, rent. The people in this room may remember it last september when a financial industry went into panic. Wall street face uncertainty. Smart Government Employees came up with a plan. Et in the Financial Markets through a mechanism that has not been used since the financial crisis. Let me be clear i dont think its wrong for the fed to be creative and make sure the economy keeps working. It is in everybodys interest to have credit keep flowing. Consumers can buy houses and cars. So no one jumps back or get creative. The president doesnt criticize by tweet. The chairman of the Federal Reservege when he said he does not demand that they raise workers. As hard for families to understand why wall street gets worked up about 10 Interest Rate. If the payday lender down the street charges the more than 4 . They dont had access to reach themrg retail funding. It doesnt take action when thats owned researchers found that 40 of americans dont have the cash. They go to the payday lender and then things spiral downward. No one raises alarms when 40 million americans admit that they will you lose that. It will flow from the pockets of the struggling families. Serious people havent dropped everything to bring down the wages. One thing goes wrong in their life in their lives turned upside down. They see different economies and different responses. Theres a lot about the different divides in this country. People who walks watch fox and people who watch nbc. The real divide i see as those whose problems are considered an emergency and those whose struggles decided they cant ignore. The fed needs to get to creative for the people that make this work. St the president and the majority leader are simply not about to. Now they want to pay for the tax cuts. I heard at the state of the union that night. Manufacturing jobs are stalling compared to when he took office. And now in his budget after e. Promising workers dont tell your home sawyer homes. That was giving the community. You and your highly capable staff. Have been protecting wall street. Im glad you have. What i hope to hear from you today is how you are to be proactive and use that same level of creativity to make this economy work for everyone else. There are tremendous resultsat that i expect you will discuss with us today. You will make your statement and then we will proceed. I thank you very much. I am pleased to present the Federal Reserves semiannual Monetary Policy report. My colleagues and i strongly support the goals of maximum employment. Congress has given us an important degree of independence to pursue the goals. This independence brings with it an obligation to explain clearly how we pursue our goals. Today i will review the current Economic Situation before turning to Monetary Policy. Its well into the 11th here and it is the longest on record. Economic activity increased at a moderate pace. On as the economy appeared resilient to the headwinds that it have i intensified last summer. Inflation has been low and stable but it has continued to run. They averaged 200,000 per month in the second half of last year. An additional 225,000 jobs were added in january. It has remained above what is needed. Allowing the Unemployment Rate to move down even further. It has been near halfcentury lowsws for more than a year. Job openings remain plentiful. They are willing to hire workers entering them. People who live and work and low and middle income communities are finding new Opportunities Employment gains have been broadbased across all racial and ethnic groups in levels of location. Gdp rose at a moderate rate over the second half of last year. The fundamental supporting Household Spending remains solid. Is residential investment turned up in the second half. They were weak, largely reflecting growth and trade developments. Those same factors wait on their activities. There has been little change since then. The february Monetary Policy report discovers a weakness. De they are closely monitoring the emergence of the coronavirus which could lead to interruptions in china. Over the 12 months through december. It was 1. 6 percent. Core inflation which excludes the volatile food and Energy Prices was alson, 1. 6 percent. They expect inflation to move closer to 2 as unusually low ratings from early 200019 drop out of the 12 month calculation. The nation faces important longer run challenges Labor Force Participation by individuals in their prime working years is at its highest rate in more than a decade. However, it remains lower than in most other advanced economies into their are troubling labor market disparities across racial and ethnic groups and across regions of the country. In addition although it is encouraging that productivity growth the main engine for raising those over the longer term has moved up recentlyly productivity gains have been subpar throughout this long economic expansion. Finding ways to boost labor forces. Pa i will now turn to Monetary Policy. Over the second half of 200019 f once he shifted to a more substantial shift. There was weaker Global Growth. To the 2 objective. We lower the federal funds rate target. At our meetings meeting to bring the current target range to one and half toge three and a quarter percent. At the subsequent meetings. Trade diminished in amid some signs that Global Growth may be stabilizing the Committee Left the policy rate unchanged. The f once he believes that the current stance of Monetary Policycy will support continued Economic Growth a strong labor market and inflation returning to the 2 objective. As long as incoming information about the economy remains broadly consistent with this outlookn the current stance will likely remain appropriate. Of course, policy not on a preset course. That caused that material the material reassessment. We would respond accordingly. Taking a longer view. There has been a decline over the past quarter centuryre with the economy operate at its full potential. The low Interest Rate environment may limit the interest. With this concert in mind we had been conducting a review of our Monetary Policy strategy tools. Public engagement is at the heart of this effort. Through our events we had been hearing from representative of consumer labor in business. The february Monetary Policy report shares some of what weve learned. The insights had been formed. The framework discussions. We will share our conclusions when we finish the review. Likely around the middle of this year. Th the current low Interest Rate environments means that it would be important for fiscal policy to help support the economy if it weakens. Wo its on a sustainable path when the economy is strong. Policymakers have the strength to use it. A more sustainable federal budget could also support the economys growth over the long term. Finally, i will just briefly review our plan and technical operations to implement Monetary Policy in and the february Monetary Policy support. They have treasury bills and those actions. Effective control of the federal funds rate. As i built purchases continue to build reserves. We intend to gradually transition away from the active use of repo operations. Also, as reserves reach durable levels. We intend to slow our person purpose is to allow the Balance Sheet to grow in terms of trend demand. All of the technical measures support the implementation of Monetary Policy that are not intended to represent a change in Monetary Policy. We stand ready to adjust the details of our technical opportunities. Thank you, im happy to take your questions. As i said before i wont use my five minutes for questions. In fact, i will try to set a standard for the rest of the committee. T t before i turned the time to senator brown however, and yield my time i want to indicate that its been brought to my attention that senator shelby who unfortunately is not able to be here right now recently became the longestserving member of the Senate Banking committee in history. He began his service on the committee , on january 6, 1987 and has now served approximately 33 years one month in three days. That surpasses senator sparkman also of alabama who previously served on the banking committee. Almost 32 years. Senator shelby has seen dramatic change. And himself has have a meaningful impact on Financial Institutions. During his tenure on the committee included as chairman. Th i take this opportunity to thank him for his service on this committee and congratulate him on a significant milestone. [applause]. We will clap again when he comes. Thank you mister chairman. When the fed said it is nearing maximum employment and the labor market is strong it could mean workers had one good paying job or can mean that they are working under 40 hours at three parttime jobs. I think this highlights how the economic recovery has not benefited nearly everyone. You hear the statistics. 25 percent of people pay half of their income in rent. Clearly, it is its not reaching everyone. If you have to work three jobs. And one of the ten fastestgrowing professions seven out of ten of those jobs are this. You still cant afford rent. Something is wrong. I appreciate you listening to and looking forward to report. I want to know who do you head at the fed working on bold and creative ways to use the authorityy some tools we probably dont know about using your authority to help working families that arent benefiting from Economic Growth. Make sureou do to that most of our Economic Growth not a sliver of it but most of it ends up in workers pockets . Our tools are not focused on those effects. Other agencies do. Its really the power to address those issues. The thrust of our review of Monetary Policy is to assure that we have the tools to carry out the mandate that you have given us. In a world where inflation is trending lower. The connection between inflation and tightness. Its very low now. It creates a very challenging environment for us to carry out the job you have given us. Thats why were doing a deep dive on issues. As senator mcconnell and the president have refused to raise the minimum wage. Under 8. They took away overtime we know congress is not just doing its job to redistribute income. Hundreds of millions of americans. This list quickly. The fed has been very creative to that countrys and fits. When wall street has reached it. Sometimes of their own making. I ask you to be as creative and thinking of ways that this wealth is shared beyond one or two or 5 . We are were thrilled with the economy the way it is. One other question mister chairman. We are seeing the Financial System get more and more exotic. That mean it could likely own on a new power plant. They want to form an industrial loan company. Nt and recently he voted with other bank regulators. In the 2013 rule allowing for more risky investments. The Financial System is getting more complex. Things people dont understand. Should we be focused on exemplifying it. Much higher capital and liquidity requirements. They do address in a timely way. The resolution planning. Those are the big four important measures that we put into place after the financial crisis. Thank you very much mister chairman welcome back mister chairman, good to see you again. I have several somewhat technical questions some of them weve we discussed to varying degrees in the past. You may recall i was never convinced this was a great idea for the fed to pursue this since we have a private sector system in place. Heres my question for you. A number of constituents have e