the improvement in aggregate debt quality and performance conceals important underlying changes in debt holdings that could be consequential, with implications for the housing market and for consumer spending over the longer term. while older borrowers hold more debt of all types, there has been a significant shift among younger people toward student debt and away from mortgage and other debt. student debt has increased more than fivefold over the past 14 years, with more young adults taking out loans and borrowing larger average amounts. and, while debt delinquency rates overall have fallen, those for student debt have remained elevated. since 2012, the new york fed has devoted considerable attention to the rapid growth in student debt levels and delinquencies by publishing a number of reports. the findings in these reports were largely based on data from our consumer credit panel ( ccp ), a nationally representative dataset sourced from equifax credit reports. this unique dataset has enabled us to provide new insights into the overall state of the student loan market and into individual student loan borrowing and repayment behavior not available from other data sources. 1 / 3 bis central bankers'speeches today, we will first provide a brief overview of aggregate household debt and its borrowers, followed by a presentation based on new research on student debt, which focuses on delinquency and repayment rates. we find that recent cohorts of college students are defaulting at a lower rate than those who left higher education during the recession. but, at the same time, their repayment rates are also lower. despite an improving labor market, overall delinquency rates on student debt remain stubbornly high, and repayment progress has slowed further, likely reflecting the recent introduction of more accommodative payment plans. payment progress is particularly low for those with larger debts and for those from lower - income areas. much remains to be learned about the causes of the observed expansion of debt burdens and repayment problems among recent college graduates. over the past two decades, there has been a significant change in the financing of higher education — with state and local funding covering a smaller share, and students and their families bearing a greater proportion of rising college costs. while the federal student loan program has undoubtedly helped mitigate the impact of higher costs on college enrollment, more students now leave college with higher amounts of debt. at the same time, college dropout rates remain stubbornly high, and empirical evidence indicates that graduates from some colleges have had trouble finding

john c williams : peeling the inflation onion, revisited remarks ( virtual ) by mr john c williams, president and chief executive officer of the federal reserve bank of new york, prepared for a regional visit to long island, 29 september 2023. * * * the federal reserve has two main monetary policy goals, often referred to as the " dual mandate " : maximum employment and price stability. as i will discuss in more detail, we are doing well on our maximum employment mandate, but we still have a ways to go to fully restore price stability. although inflation has come down from the peak reached last year, it is still too high. price stability is the bedrock upon which our economic prosperity and stability stands. the federal open market committee ( fomc ) has set a 2 percent longer - run goal for inflation and is committed to attaining that goal on a sustained basis. 1 before i go any further, i must give the standard fed disclaimer that the views i express today are mine alone and do not necessarily reflect those of the fomc or others in the federal reserve system. the inflation onion after peaking at just over 7 percent in june of last year, inflation is now 3 - 1 / 2 percent, based on the 12 - month percent change in the personal consumption expenditures price index. to understand why inflation rose so much and how it's coming back down, i find it useful to use the metaphor of an onion with various " layers " of inflation. 2 the outer layer of the onion consists of prices of globally traded commodities - lumber, steel, grains, and oil. the pandemic caused global demand for commodities to skyrocket. russia's war against ukraine set off a second sharp rise in commodity prices. since then, global demand has come into better balance with supply, and inflation in this layer has come down significantly. to give an idea of how big the swings in these inflation rates have been, food price inflation soared to over 10 percent and energy price inflation skyrocketed to over 40 percent in june of last year. over the past 12 months, as supply - demand imbalances receded, food price inflation dropped to about 3 percent, and, despite the recent rebound in oil and gasoline prices, energy prices have declined by about 3 - 1 / 2 percent. the middle layer of the onion is made up of goods like appliances, furniture, and cars. in the pandemic and its aftermath, demand for goods rose, supply - chain