Federal Reserve press conference, 2023-06-14 — Chair Jerome Powell

Question (Victoria Guida, Politico): Yeah—are you considering lowering the RRP rate to help take some pressure off banks?
Answer: So we, we have a number of—I would say the [ON] RRP [facility] doesn’t look like it’s, it’s pulling money out of—out of the banking system. It’s actually been shrinking here lately. So I don’t think—that’s not something, something we’ve thought about a lot over time. It doesn’t really look like that’s, that’s something that we would do. I think it’s—I think it’s a tool that we have. If we want to use it, we can. There are other tools we can—we can use to address money market issues. But I wouldn’t say that that’s something that’s likely that we would do in the near term.

Question (Julie Chabanas, Agence France-Presse): I’m sorry. Thank you. Hi, Chair Powell. Julie Chabanas, AFP News Agency. The May job report showed a rebound in May in the Black workers’ unemployment. Is it consistent with the Fed’s maximum-employment mandate? Are you worried about that—about this rebound?
Answer: So we are, of course, worried about—there are—there are long- standing differences in racial and ethnic groups across, across our labor market. That’s a factor that we don’t—we can’t really address with our tools. But we do consider that when we’re thinking about what constitutes maximum employment—it is, for us, a broad and inclusive goal. And so we do watch that. But remember, all unemployment, including Black unemployment, has been bouncing around right near historic lows—historic modern lows here. So we’re still talking about, I mean, what is as strong a labor market as we’ve seen in, you know, a half- century here in the United States. So overall unemployment of 3.7 percent is, is higher—three- tenths higher than it was measured to be at the last—a month ago. But, still, it’s extraordinarily low. And so it’s a very, very tight labor market.