BoostedJonP/JeromePowell-SFT huggingface dataset:
Press conference exchange between EDWARD LAWRENCE and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Mr. Chairman, thank you for taking the question. So I’m interested in the housing sector. Home prices are rising, 9 percent in some areas, because of low interest rates. Are you concerned about a bubble forming there yet? And is there a price increase, you know, that you’re looking at where it might change the level of mortgage-backed securities the Fed is buying? And, as a continuation of that, is the bubble in the corporate debt cycle more concerning for you?

assistant: So, on housing, you know, housing is now—the level of housing activity is at its highest level since before the Global Financial Crisis, in some measures. So we’ve had a very strong rebound in housing. Some of the, the tightness in housing markets, we think—which has led to the, the significant price increases this year—we think is, is a passing phenomenon. There was a lot of pent-up demand. There’s a one-time thing happening with people who are spending all of their time in their house, and they’re thinking either “I need a bigger house” or “I need another house and a different house—or a second house,” in some cases. So there’s just—there’s a—there’s a one- time shift in demand that we think will get satisfied—also, that will call forth supply. And that will—that will, we think—we think that those price increases are unlikely to be sustained for, for all of those reasons. So you asked about corporate debt, I guess?

user: Yes. I’m just concerned if that’s a bubble that you’re watching.

assistant: So we, we monitor pretty much all of the big financial markets pretty carefully. And, you know, what’s happened in, in the corporate debt market, beginning with the announcement of our corporate credit facility, has been, you’ve seen lenders lending and borrowers borrowing. You’ve seen relatively significantly fewer defaults than we—than we expected. There were a lot of downgrades and some defaults at the beginning, and those have really slowed down. And, by the way, the same is true for bank loans. Banks are not experiencing the kinds of defaults that, that we all were concerned about in the early months of the pandemic. It’s just not materializing. So they’re having to reverse some of their loss reserves, actually. Debts—corporate debt spreads are, are tight. They’ve tightened. They were very broad—high—wide, of course, at the—during the acute phase of the pandemic, and they’ve— you know, they’re now at the lower end of their typical range. And we do monitor that. You know, it’s, it’s not something we can control or operate on directly, but we do—we do watch those things. And, you know, in a sense, it’s good that companies have been able to finance themselves during this period, because they—they’ve been able to stay in business. They’ve been able to keep their employees working. And, you know, that’s a good thing. And that’s, that’s part of highly accommodative financial conditions.
Press conference exchange between HOWARD SCHNEIDER and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Hi, Chair Powell, and, and thanks for that. So could you talk us through how the, the forecasts for 2021 map into the “substantial further progress” definition—you know, 2.4 percent inflation—I understand that’s considered transitory. That still seems like some progress there, 4½ percent unemployment. Is it time to start talking about talking about tapering yet?

assistant: Not yet. So, as you—as you pointed out, we’ve said that we would continue asset purchases at this pace until we see substantial further progress. And that’s actual progress, not forecast progress. So—and that’s a difference from, from our past approach. So—and what we mean by that is, is pretty straightforward. It is, we want to see that, that the labor markets have moved—labor market conditions have moved—you know, have made substantial progress toward maximum employment, and inflation has made substantial progress toward the 2 percent goal. That’s what we’re going to want to see. Now, that obviously includes an element of judgment. And when we see—we’ll be—we’ll be carefully looking ahead. We, we also understand that we, we will want to provide as much advance notice of any potential taper as possible. So when we see that we’re on track, when we see actual data coming in that suggests that we’re on track to perhaps achieve substantial further progress, then we’ll say so. And we’ll say so well in advance of any decision to actually taper.

user: If, if I could follow up on that, this shift in the dots—why wouldn’t that suggest a weakening of the commitment here? An awful lot of people shifted into 2022, it seems.

assistant: I, I don’t see that at all. You know, we, we have a, a range of perspectives on the Committee. I welcome that. And, you know, we, we have—we debate things, we discuss things, and we always come together around a—around a, a solution. But, you know, the, the strong bulk of the Committee is, is not showing a rate increase during this forecast period. And, you know, as, as data improve, as the outlook improves very significantly since the December meeting, you would expect forecasts to move up. It’s probably not a surprise that some people would bring in their estimate of the appropriate time for liftoff. Nonetheless, you know, the bulk of the Committee—the, the largest part by far of the Committee is, is—doesn’t show a rate increase during this period. And, again, part of that is wanting to see actual data rather than just a forecast at this point. We do expect that we’ll begin to make faster progress on both spending—you know, labor markets and inflation as the year goes on because of the progress with the vaccines, because of the fiscal support that we’re getting. We expect that to happen. But, you know, we’ll have to see it first.
Press conference exchange between VICTORIA GUIDA and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Hi, Chair Powell. I wanted to ask about the supplementary leverage ratio. You know, there’s been a lot of talk about what you all are going to do this month, which—I’m happy to hear an update if you have one. But just more broadly, do you think, long term, that the leverage ratio poses problems for implementing monetary policy at a time when the reserve supply is going to remain large? And, if so, do you think the changes to the leverage ratio, including the SLR, are the way to deal with that problem?

assistant: Victoria, we’ll have something to announce on that in coming days. And I’m not going to expound upon your questions. Why don’t you—why don’t you ask another question if you’d like to? Because, because that one—I’m just going to say that we’ll have something in coming days.

user: Sure. Okay. Well, then I’ll ask about unemployment. You know, there’s—the unemployment rate is—you all have projections for the U-6 rate, but you’ve also been, you know, really emphasizing the fact ’s not the only thing that you all are looking at. You’re also looking at labor force participation and things like that. So are you all looking at ways of maybe adding to how you’re projecting the unemployment rate to the Summary of Economic Projections?

assistant: Well, let me say, as we say in our Statement on Longer-Run Goals and Monetary Policy Strategy, we look to a range of indicators on the labor market. We never only looked at the unemployment rate, which is the only indicator of, of labor market outcomes that’s in the SEP. We look at a very broad range. You hear us talk all the time about participation; about employment to population, which is the combination of the two; about different measures of, of unemployment. So it’s wages, it’s, it’s the job flows, it’s, you know, all of those things. They go into an assessment—disparities of various groups. All that goes into an assessment of maximum employment. The, the—trying to incorporate all of that into the Summary of Economic Projections would not be practical. You know, obviously, the thing that we do include is just the unemployment rate, and that’s a very insufficient statistic. So—it, it doesn’t include a lot of other things that we—that we do look at. And I, I wouldn’t want to say that we’re looking to include the other dozen things that we look at into the SEP. But at time—from time to time, we do look at, at adding different things. But I, I would just say the SEP is, it’s a summary. It’s one device. It’s not going to include all of the things that we look at. I think the things that we look at—we, we talk about them all the time. So we’re not actually looking actively at significantly broadening those indicators in the SEP right now.
Press conference exchange between CHRIS RUGABER and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Thank you. Chair Powell, I wanted to ask about the forecast overall. You’re forecasting a very low unemployment rate next year and in 2023, you have inflation—or, the Fed overall is, in the SEP, forecasting inflation at or above 2 percent by 2023, yet no rate hike in any of this—in any of this forecast horizon. So is this telling us that we could see a higher inflation rate than was projected? Or do you not—as you’ve been talking about, is the unemployment rate insufficient? Or what is this telling us about the Fed’s reaction function, that it seems you’re meeting the Fed’s dual mandate by 2023, yet, again, no rate hike expected?

assistant: So I guess the first thing to say is that the, the SEP is not a Committee forecast. It’s, it’s not something we sit around and debate and discuss and approve, and say, “This represents our, you know, our reaction function as a Committee.” It’s a compilation of projections from different people. And I—since we don’t debate it or discuss it, it would be hard for me to say why—exactly why each participant did what they were going to do. So all I would say about this is that we’ve—we laid out what I think is very clear guidance on liftoff. And it’s really three things: labor market conditions that are consistent with our estimates of maximum employment—and, as I mentioned, we consider a wide range of indicators in assessing labor market conditions, not just the unemployment rate; inflation that has reached 2 percent, and not just on a transitory basis; and inflation that’s on track to run moderately above 2 percent for some time. The first two of those three are very much data based; the third does have a little bit of a—of an element of expectations in it. So we are very much determined to implement this guidance in a robust way. It is the guidance that we chose carefully to implement our new framework. And to meet these standards, we’ll need to see data, as I mentioned. So what does—what does this, this SEP really say? It says that we’re committed to our framework and to the guidance we’ve provided to implement that framework. We will wait until the requirements set forth in that guidance are clearly met before considering a change in our policy rate. And the last thing I’ll say is this: The state of the economy in two or three years is highly uncertain, and I wouldn’t want to focus too much on the exact timing of a potential rate increase that far into the future. So that’s how I would think about the, the SEP.
Press conference exchange between PAUL KIERNAN and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Thank you, Chairman Powell. My question is twofold. One, how high are you comfortable letting inflation rise? There, there is some ambiguity in, in your new target, as you mentioned, “expectations driven.” And, and do you think ambiguity might cause markets to price in a lower tolerance for inflation than the Fed actually has, thereby causing financial conditions to tighten prematurely? Is that a concern? Thanks.

assistant: So we’ve said we’d like to see inflation run moderately above 2 percent for some time. And we’ve resisted, basically, generally, the temptation to try to quantify that. Part of that just is, talking about inflation is one thing; actually having inflation run above 2 percent is the real thing. So I—you know, over the years we’ve, we’ve talked about 2 percent inflation as a goal, but we haven’t achieved it. So I, I would say we’d like to, you know, perform. That’s what we’d really like to do, is to get inflation moderately above 2 percent. I don’t want to be too specific about what that means, because I think it’s hard to do that. And we haven’t done it yet. You know, when we’re actually above 2 percent, we can do that. I—look, I, I would say this. The fundamental change in, in our framework is that we, we’re not going to act preemptively based on forecasts for the most part. And we’re going to wait to see actual data. And I think it will take people time to, to adjust to that—and to adjust to that new practice. And the only way we can really build the credibility of that is by doing it. So that’s how I would think about that.
Press conference exchange between STEVE LIESMAN and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Mr. Chairman, thank you. I wonder if you could— a three- parter here, but all related. Would you comment on the current level of the 10-year yield and some other long rates out there, whether or not you think they would have a negative effect on the economy? And, if not, is there a level that would give you concern? And, finally, the third part: Other central bankers have expressed concern about what’s happened to yields in their countries and even some taken action, but not you. Could you give us your general idea or orientation towards the idea of, of coming into the market and affecting a particular tenor of the bond market? Do—do you like that idea? Do you not like it? Is it at the top of your toolbox, or is it something that you think is at the bottom of the toolbox?

assistant: Sure. So we monitor a broad range of financial conditions, and we’re always attentive to market developments, of course. We’re still a long way from our goals, and it’s important that financial conditions do remain accommodative to support the achievement of those goals. And if you look at various indexes of financial conditions, what you’ll see is that they generally do show financial conditions overall to be highly accommodative. And that is appropriate. So that’s, that’s how we look at it. I would add, as I’ve said, I would be concerned by disorderly conditions in markets or by a persistent tightening of financial conditions that threaten the achievement of our goals. We think the stance of our—of monetary policy remains appropriate. Our guidance on the federal funds rate and on asset purchases is providing strong support for the economy. And we’re committed to maintaining that patiently accommodative stance until the job is well and truly done.

user: Could, could you give us an idea of how you feel about that tool, of being able to come into a particular part of the market and either operating—doing an Operation Twist or something like that? Is that something you feel to be the top of your toolbox or something that you don’t really prefer?

assistant: You know, we—the tools we have are the tools we have. What I’m telling you is that the stance of monetary policy we have today, we believe, is appropriate. We think that our asset purchases in their current form—which is to say, you know, across the curve, $80 billion in Treasuries, $40 billion in mortgage-backed securities on net—we think ’s, that’s the right place for our asset purchases. Now, we can—we can change them, of course, in, in a number of different dimensions should we deem ’s appropriate. But, for now, we think that our policy stance on that is appropriate.
Press conference exchange between RACHEL SIEGEL and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Hi, Chair Powell. Thanks very much for taking my question. You’ve spoken about the pandemic’s disproportionate toll on Black Americans, Hispanic Americans, Asian Americans, and other groups in the labor market. And I’m curious if you can speak to specific indicators that the Fed will be using to measure job gains for groups that have persistently higher rates of unemployment compared to white Americans. And, relatedly, since you’ve described vaccines as key to the economic recovery, is the Fed concerned about lower vaccination rates in communities of color? And what barriers do you think exist there? Thanks very much.

assistant: So, which measures. So we, we do monitor and communicate very regularly about different labor market—disparities in the labor market, let’s say. So the African American unemployment rate is substantially elevated, and so is the Hispanic unemployment rate. So we look at those and we see those as, you know—it’s, it’s slack in the labor market. It’s, it’s sad to see, because those disparities had really come down to record lows since we started keeping the data that way. As recently as a year ago, February of last year, we had those, those disparities quite low. What happens in a downturn, though, is they move up at twice the speed of white unemployment. So we monitor those things. We—our tools, of course, affect unemployment generally, but we’re going to look at those as, as a form of slack in the labor market and hope that, you know, that there’s progress there. And, and this particular downturn, of course, was just a direct hit on, on a part of the economy that employs many minorities and lower-paid workers. The public-facing workers in the service industries in many cases don’t have a lot of financial assets, they’re not tremendously well paid, they might have other jobs, and things like that. So this was a direct hit on that part of the economy. And it’s the slowest part of the economy to recover. So, you know, we’d like to see those people continue to get supported, you know, as we—as the broader economy recovers, which, which it’s very much doing now. In terms of disparate levels of vaccination, that’s—those are facts and unfortunate facts. They’re really not something we, we have within our policy toolkit to address. But it is—it is true, though, that the data we have suggests that there are—there are significant disparities between different ethnic groups and—you know, but that’s, that’s not for us. That’s for fiscal authorities and the government more generally to, to work on.
Press conference exchange between JEANNA SMIALEK and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Hey, Chair Powell. Thanks for taking our questions. I was wondering if you could talk a little bit about how you see the fiscal policy support that has come down the line affecting the economy’s potential in the longer term, just in the sense that you’ve talked a lot about the potential for labor market scarring and how that might weigh on our, sort of, future prospects. And I wonder whether you see that working in reverse. You know, if we put people back into the labor market more quickly, does that improve our chances?

assistant: So I do think that fiscal policy overall will have really helped us to avoid much of the scarring that we were very, very concerned about at the beginning. And I think that’s just the size and the speed with which Congress has delivered—you know, with the CARES Act and since then, has—is going to wind up very much accelerating the return to full employment. It’s going to make a huge difference in people’s lives. And it has already. As I mentioned in my remarks—opening remarks, the recovery has been faster than we expected. Part of that just is, it’s very hard to predict, given we’ve never seen an event like this. But part of it is just the strength of the fiscal response, which I think will, will look good over the years. Longer term, you know, to, to really—that’s—the first part of it is about avoiding scarring, and I think we’ve not avoided all of the scarring, but we’ve probably avoided the worst cases there. And, and I hope we keep at it, and we will keep at it with our policies, of course, to do whatever we can to make sure that’s—that continues. Longer term though, what it takes to drive productive capacity per capita or per hour worked, to raise living standards over time, is investment: investment in people’s skills and aptitudes, investment in plant and equipment, investment in software. It takes a lot of investment to, to support a more productive economy and raise living standards. And that’s—you know, that hasn’t been the principal focus with these measures—our measures, certainly. And we don’t have those tools. But what Congress has been doing has mainly been replacing lost income and beginning to, you know, support people as the economy returns to normal. But there should be a focus on—a longer-term focus, I think, would be healthy on, on the investment front.
Press conference exchange between JAMES POLITI and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Thank you, Chair Powell. I wanted to ask a question about the euro zone. While the outlook for the U.S. economy has much improved, progress in the euro zone has been far less encouraging. And it’s showing signs of serious weakness due, due to the slower vaccination rollout and renewed lockdowns and restrictions. How worried are you about transatlantic economic divergence and the possibility that, that trouble in the euro zone and weakness in the euro zone could, could drag down the U.S. recovery as it did, in a way, in the aftermath of the financial crisis?

assistant: You’re right that the pace of the recovery is that we’re having diverging recoveries here, as we did after the last crisis. And in this case, as well as the other one, the U.S.’s recovery is, is leading the global recovery. And, you know, we conduct policy, of course, here. Our, our focus is on—our, you know—our, our objectives are domestic ones. It’s, it’s maximum employment and price stability here in the United States. We monitor developments abroad, and we know—because they know we know that they can—those can affect our outcomes. So I think U.S. demand—very strong U.S. demand, if, if—as the economy improves is going to support global activity as well over time. That, that’ll be through imports. And, you know, when the U.S. economy is strong, that strength tends to be—tends to support global, global activity as well. So that’s one thing. I don’t—I don’t worry in the near term. I mean, I’d love to see Europe growing faster. I’d love to see the vaccine rollout going more smoothly. But I don’t worry too much about us in the near term, because we’re, we’re on a very good track. Very strong fiscal support coming, now vaccination going quickly, and cases coming down. I think we’re—I think we’re in a good place. It’s all ahead of us, but the data should, should get stronger fairly quickly here and remain strong for some time here.
Press conference exchange between HANNAH LANG and Fed Chair Jerome Powell:

user: Hi, thanks so much for taking our questions. I wanted to ask if the Fed is planning on extending the same restrictions on bank dividends and share repurchases— I’m sorry, share repurchases that are currently in place into the second quarter, and if you’re considering at all the scenario analysis and midcycle stress tests that were in place last year, this year. And, kind of, what would make you consider doing something like that again?

assistant: So we haven’t made a decision on that. We’re a couple weeks away from announcing that decision. I, I won’t foreshadow it here today. I will say, we’re going to continue our data-driven approach. You know that we restricted buybacks and dividends, so the firms are preserving capital. Through 2020, the banks actually increased their level of capital and their level of reserves. And the December stress tests showed that banks are strong and well capitalized under our hypothetical recessions that we—that we used in December, which were quite stringent. We’re right in the middle of our 2021 stress tests, and we’ll release those results before the end of June. And that layers, you know, very significant additional stress on top of the stress the banks have already absorbed over the past year, with the unemployment rate going to 11 percent and stock prices falling more than 50 percent. So—but all of that, you know, the results of the stress tests and the decision on distributions—all of that is to come fairly soon, as I mentioned.