in the pursuit of our dual mandate. for a discussion of time - consistency issues in monetary policy, see the staff analysis of duarte and others ( 2020 ), prepared for this review. a summary of the september 2019 fomc discussion is available on the board ’ s website at https : / / www. federalreserve. gov / monetarypolicy / fomccalendars. htm. for the staff analysis presented as background to that discussion, see arias and others ( 2020 ), duarte and others ( 2020 ), and hebden and others ( 2020 ). see also the related staff analysis by chung and others ( 2020 ) on the use of operational inflation ranges. - 15 policy implication of this stated desire “ to achieve inflation that averages 2 percent over time ”? again, the implication of our new strategy for monetary policy is stated explicitly in the new statement, and, at the risk of repeating myself, let me restate it verbatim : “ … following periods when inflation has been running persistently below 2 percent, appropriate monetary policy will likely aim to achieve inflation moderately above 2 percent for some time. ” full stop. as chair powell indicated in his remarks last week, we think of this new strategy as an evolution from flexible inflation targeting to flexible average inflation targeting. 29 concluding thoughts my remarks today have been focused on our new framework and flexible average inflation targeting strategy. of course, our review has also explored ways in which we might add to our toolkit and refine our communication practices. with regard to our toolkit, we believe that forward guidance and large - scale asset purchases have been and continue to be effective sources of support to the economy when the federal funds rate is at the elb, and, of course, both were deployed promptly in our march 2020 policy response to the pandemic. with regard to other monetary policy tools, and as we have made clear previously in the minutes to our october 2019 fomc meeting, we do not see negative policy rates as an attractive policy option in the u. s. context. 30 as for targeting the yield curve, our general view is that with credible forward guidance and asset purchases, the potential benefits from such an approach may be modest. at the same svensson ( 2020 ) argues that “ forecast targeting ” approaches, by which policymakers set the federal funds rate so as to best stabilize forecasts for inflation and employment around the fomc ’ s longer - run goals,

even more meaningful if it were coupled with the adoption of a set of provisions for dealing with unanticipated budgetary outcomes over time. as you are well aware, budget outcomes in the past have deviated from projections - in some cases, significantly - and they will continue to do so. accordingly, a well - designed set of mechanisms that facilitate midcourse corrections would ease the task of bringing the budget back into line when it goes off track. in particular, you might want to require that existing programs be assessed regularly to verify that they continue to meet their stated purposes and cost projections. measures that automatically take effect when costs for a particular spending program or tax provision exceed a specified threshold may prove useful as well. the original design of the budget enforcement act could also be enhanced by addressing how the strictures might evolve if and when reasonable fiscal balance came into view. i do not mean to suggest that the nation's budget problems will be solved simply by adopting a new set of rules. the fundamental fiscal issue is the need to make difficult choices among budget priorities, and this need is becoming ever more pressing in light of the unprecedented number of individuals approaching retirement age. for example, future congresses and presidents will, over time, have to weigh the benefits of continued access, on current terms, to advances in medical technology against other spending priorities as well as against tax initiatives that foster increases in economic growth and the revenue base. because the baby boomers have not yet started to retire in force, we have been in a demographic lull. but this state of relative stability will soon end. in 2008 - just three years from now - the leading edge of the baby - boom generation will reach 62, the earliest age at which social security retirement benefits can be drawn and the age at which about half of those eligible to claim benefits have been doing so in recent years. just three years after that, in 2011, the oldest baby boomers will reach 65 and will thus be eligible for medicare. currently, 3 - 1 / 4 workers contribute to the social security system for each beneficiary. under the intermediate assumptions of the program's trustees, the number of beneficiaries will have roughly doubled by 2030, and the ratio of covered workers to beneficiaries will be down to about 2. the pressures on the budget from this dramatic demographic change will be exacerbated by those stemming from the anticipated steep upward trend in spending per medicare beneficiary. the combination