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Progressive groups focus on unemployment. The "Fed Up" campaign has advocated keeping monetary policy stimulus in place longer to drive unemployment lower.

Progressives have begun to dream more boldly. We have graduated from a public option to single payer. From lower sentences to eliminating cash bail. From motor-voter to automatic-voter registration. From affordable to free college. And from a $15 minimum wage to guaranteed good jobs for all.

“Of course not," Shawn Sebastian, co-leader of the Fed Up coalition of advocacy groups and labor unions, told Politico he opposes Williams in part because Williams has occasionally favored interest-rate hikes.

Fed Up, a group of economists and former Fed officials, and other organizations have been critical of the selection process as well as the approach the central bank has taken to policy-making.

“Yet the drum beat of criticism in recent weeks, including a demonstration outside the New York Fed and letters from state and city lawmakers, is raising worries within the Fed about independence from political pressure.

Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) had called for the co-chairs and Williams to appear before the Senate Banking Committee if Williams ended up as the choice. Fed Up co-director Shawn Sebastian said the coalition supports that call.

Shawn Sebastian, field director of Fed Up, a campaign by labor, community and liberal activist groups that wants the Fed to enact pro-worker policies, said the choice of Williams damaged the Fed’s legitimacy and credibility.“Today, the Federal Reserve concluded another opaque and controversial Re

"Today, the Federal Reserve concluded another opaque and controversial Reserve Bank presidential selection process by ignoring the demands of the public and choosing yet another white man whose record on Wall Street regulation and full employment raises serious questions,” said Shawn Sebastian, F

"We hope that John Williams's tenure as president will not be characterized by the same disregard for the public as his appointment was." -- Fed Up, a coalition of progressive non-profits focused on reshaping the central bank.

Progressive groups seized on Mr. Dudley’s retirement as a rare opportunity to influence an economic policy appointment that is outside Mr. Trump’s control. Protesters marched on the bank’s Lower Manhattan headquarters last month to demand a president who would represent working people.