Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City President Esther George will host a meeting Thursday with the activist group known as Fed Up ahead of the bank’s annual conference in Jackson Hole, Wyoming.

Other Fed officials also will attend the meeting, which will “focus on crucial and timely questions about monetary policy and Federal Reserve governance,” the group said in a statement. The meeting will be streamed online, the group said.

The Kansas City Fed confirmed the Aug. 25 meeting with the left-leaning Center for Popular Democracy’s Fed Up coalition.

Fed Up has been urging the central bank to hold off on raising interest rates until the economy improves further and working class households have seen more of the benefits of the expansion. The group also has criticized the Fed for lack of diversity among its 12 regional bank presidents.

The group has joined with Andrew Levin, a Dartmouth College professor and former Fed staffer, to propose changing the regional banks into fully government institutions from their quasi-public, quasi-private structure, and to eliminate regional board director seats that are reserved for bankers. The boards are responsible for appointing regional bank presidents who participate in the Fed’s policy meetings.

By David Harrison

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