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Economy

Calls grow for the Federal Reserve to target lowering the black unemployment rate

Congress has given the central bank a mandate to get the nation to full employment and keep prices stable, but progressives say the Fed must think more about people typically ‘left behind’

By
June 10, 2020 at 1:05 p.m. EDT
Federal Reserve Chair Jerome H. Powell pauses during a news conference on March 3. (Jacquelyn Martin/AP)

As the United States faces a deep recession and protests over systemic injustices toward African Americans, calls are growing for the Federal Reserve to pay closer attention to the black unemployment rate when it makes its policy decisions.

Jared Bernstein, an economic adviser to presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden, says the Fed should make it a goal to get the black unemployment rate down. The national rate has rarely dipped below 10 percent since the government began keeping track of the black rate in 1972, and it has often been nearly double the white unemployment rate.