How many people should be unemployed? Do we want wages for working people to be rising? Should we end the racial employment gap that means Black workers will no longer be unemployed at twice the rate of the rest of the country? 

Twelve leaders of the Federal Reserve – our country’s central bank – meet every six weeks to decide on these exact questions. The Federal Reserve (the Fed) is the most important economic policy institution in the country, and yet it hides in plain sight by shrouding its work in secrecy and jargon. Grassroots activists and the progressive movement have mostly ignored the Federal Reserve, but Wall Street hasn’t and they’ve usually made sure that Federal Reserve policy backs Wall Street’s interest over Main Street’s. 

Now it’s past time for the  twelve people in that room to listen to the interests or working people. We want Federal Reserve policy to drive a pro-employment economy. The Federal Reserve can help ensure that everyone who wants to work can find a job, that wages for working people are rising, and that the racial unemployment gap is shrinking. 

CPD’s Fed Up Campaign directly targets the Federal Reserve by combining strategic grassroots organizing, high-impact communications, and a clear understanding of the inflection points in the Federal Reserve’s authority. As a national campaign with local contexts, we build and organize our affiliates’ grassroots base to target the most powerful economic policymakers in the country—who are, nonetheless, accessible and moveable. 

In the next twelve months we will be fighting for an ambitious, progressive agenda for the Federal Reserve. 

• We’re laying out a comprehensive progressive policy agenda for the Federal Reserve. 

• We’re targeting President Biden to hold him accountable for the Fed leaders that he appoints, including the decision he must make to appoint a new Chair of the Federal Reserve.  

• We’re working with grassroots CPD affiliate groups in six cities around the country to target the local Federal Reserve Bank in their region to win leadership change. 

Although Federal Reserve policy is often obscured from the public, we are leveraging the high-profile decision of Fed Chair Jerome Powell’s reappointment and nominations to fill vacant Fed Governor seats to build public awareness and engagement. Fed Up will mobilize all of our tools and strategies—local grassroots organizing, national digital mobilizing, strategic national communications and advocacy, tactical coalition building—to win appointees in greater alignment with working people’s interests and a policy agenda for a Fed that supports a pro-employment economy.