With just two weeks remaining until the Federal Reserve’s final meeting of the year, Rep. John Conyers, Co-Chair of the House Full Employment Caucus, will host a congressional briefing on Tuesday, December 1st at 1:00 p.m. Eastern on his bill to strengthen the Federal Reserve’s full employment mandate.
Rep. Conyers and co-sponsors of the bill will hear testimony from unemployed and underemployed workers who are still struggling with inadequate wages, insufficient hours, and impractical schedules. EPI’s Research and Policy Director Josh Bivens will join other leading economists: Bill Spriggs of the AFL-CIO, Dean Baker from Center for Economic and Policy Research, and Carola Binder, Professor of Economics at Haverford College, to testify about how the Federal Reserve can stimulate wage growth and make full employment a priority.
Right now, the Federal Reserve is the most important economic policymaking institution in the country. Despite the slowest wage growth in decades and double-digit Black and Latino unemployment in many communities, many Federal Reserve policymakers are declaring the economy to be at full employment,and hinting that they will raise interest rates in December. That’s why Rep. Conyers has introduced the Full Employment Federal Reserve Act, which strengthens the definition of full employment so that Fed policymakers can no longer declare victory on a weak economic recovery. At Rep. Conyers’ briefing, economic experts and workers will explain how the Fed can facilitate full employment, while making a forceful and timely argument against raising interest rates in 2015.
What: Congressional briefing featuring testimony from workers and leading economists about Federal Reserve policies to promote full employment
Who: Rep. John Conyers (D-Mich.), co-chair of the House Full Employment Caucus, and other members of the House Full Employment Caucus
Bill Spriggs, Chief Economist, AFL-CIO
Josh Bivens, Research and Policy Director, Economic Policy Institute
Dean Baker, Co-director, Center for Economic and Policy Research
Carola Binder, Professor of Economics, Haverford College
Where: Rayburn House Office Building, Room 2226
When: Tuesday, December 1, 2015 at 1 p.m. Eastern
To RSVP contact news@epi.org or Anita Jain at ajain@populardemocracy.org.