FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE 
June 16, 2021 

CONTACT
press@populardemocracy.org

NEW YORK, N.Y.— Fed Up, a project run by the Center For Popular Democracy, today announced the launch of an aggressive on-the-ground and digital grassroots campaign demanding that President Joe Biden and the leadership of the Federal Reserve ignore the owners of The Wall Street Journal and instead further policies that support a pro-employment economy and working people’s interests. The Fed Up campaign, which will start tomorrow and focus on organizing in six key Federal Reserve regions around the country, will also demand that Joe Biden appoint senior leadership to the Federal Reserve who are committed to the Federal Reserve’s maximum employment mandate. 

The campaign was announced hours before Jerome Powell, the Chair of the Federal Reserve, was to appear at today’s Federal Open Market Committee press conference, where he is expected to face a flurry of questions about whether the Federal Reserve should be changing its policies for the economic recovery because of concerns about rising prices. 

“The Wall Street Journal is crying that the sky is falling because they are afraid of working people’s wages actually beginning to go up, which happens when unemployment gets low,” said Benjamin Dulchin, Fed Up’s campaign director. “But rising wages are only scary if you care most about corporate profits. The Federal Reserve is supposed to be concerned with the wellbeing of all working people and ensure that the economic recovery continues until it actually helps the communities that need it most. Powell should ignore Rupert Murdoch and keep the focus on a pro-employment economy. And President Biden should make it clear that he will only appoint leaders to the Fed who support a pro-employment economy.” 

The Federal Reserve must set its policies by its core “dual mandate”, which requires the central bank to balance the interests of maximizing job growth while also keeping prices stable. Whether the Fed decides to emphasize one side of this dual mandate over the other is both a question of evidence and whether the Fed will err on the side of working people’s economic interests or the interest of Wall Street.

Inflation can become a legitimate problem, but if the Fed declares it a crisis too early and puts the brakes on the economy while millions of people who want to work are still out of a job — as it has done historically and as it did in 2015 when it raised interest rates prematurely — then the Fed is taking away opportunities for generations and trapping people in cycles of poverty. Unemployment hurts all working people, but affects Black and brown communities the most.

More information on Fed Up’s position can be found HERE. 

###

The Center for Popular Democracy is a national network of more than 50 community organizations dedicated to achieving racial and economic justice through local grassroots organizing. CPD trains and supports leadership, staff, and members to grow base-building organizations to scale and leverage that strength to win cutting-edge policy victories at the federal, state and local level.