accounts. community development activities are another point of emphasis, including financing for affordable housing and other needs, or volunteer activities, such as financial counseling, and providing clearer and stronger incentives to invest in the areas of need that lie outside of existing branch - based assessment areas. another key objective is to provide greater certainty ; tailor regulations based on local community needs, bank size, and business model ; and minimize burden. ultimately, we hope that our proposal provides a foundation for the three banking agencies to converge on a consistent approach that has broad support among stakeholders. the next step for us is to continue to gather feedback on our proposal from a wide range of stakeholders, including local communities. in addition to participating in conversations like this one today, we hope to receive as many comments as possible through our formal comment process, which has a deadline of february 16, 2021. we value this feedback tremendously, and our proposal includes specific questions where we are especially interested in input. given the expertise and leadership of the trust on racial equity, we will be particularly interested in your comments on the second question in our proposal : “ in considering how the cra ’ s history and purpose relate to the nation ’ s current challenges, how can we strengthen the cra to address ongoing systemic inequity in credit access for minority individuals and communities? " i thank you for your valuable engagement in this process thus far and look forward to hearing your ideas today and in the months to come. with your continued engagement, i am confident we can come together on a stronger approach to the cra that will benefit communities across the country. 1 i am grateful to taz george of the federal reserve bank of chicago for his assistance in preparing this text. these remarks represent my own views, which do not necessarily represent those of the federal reserve board or the federal open market committee. return to text 2 for more information, see the chicago community trust ’ s webpage “ chicago community covid - 19 response fund. " return to text 3 recent research indicates that the government ’ s response offset what could have been a surge in income poverty. han, meyer, and sullivan ( 2020 ) found that income poverty declined about 1. 5 percentage points, and that government programs, including the regular unemployment insurance program, the expanded unemployment insurance programs, and the economic impact payments, account for more than the entire decline in poverty, which would have risen over 2. 5 percentage points in the absence of these programs. see jeehoon han, bruce d

proved most relevant for the success of emu in europe : through the irrevocable fixing of exchange rates countries are no longer exposed to harmful intra - european exchange rate tensions and are also better protected from negative external shocks. indeed, major global developments in recent years, like the bursting of the equity bubble, the repercussions of the terrorist attacks and the substantial depreciation of the u. s. dollar might otherwise have led to phases of instability within the european economy. yet emu provided a stable framework for weathering these turbulences. upon entering the european union, the ten new member states also become members of the economic and monetary union. while they will not yet take part in emu to the full extent, as they cannot adopt the euro immediately, they are already required to observe a number of obligations embodied in the stability architecture of emu : they generally have to bring into line their economic and monetary policies with the overall goals of emu. their central banks will be represented in the general council of the ecb, which supports the ecb in its advisory and coordinating functions. the new member states will participate in the coordination of economic and monetary policies and in the multilateral fiscal surveillance. moreover, they shall treat exchange rate policies as a matter of common interest, as the functioning of the single market must not be weakened by real exchange rate misalignments or excessive nominal exchange rate fluctuations. from the point of view of a country that already enjoys the benefits of the common currency, it is essential that the next step of european integration, the adoption of the euro in the acceding countries, is as well prepared as all past integration steps. i am convinced that each of the new eu member states is a good potential candidate for the single monetary policy as defined by the economic theory on optimal currency areas : they can all be characterized as open economies with strong economic linkages with the euro area, a steadily increasing degree of business cycle synchronization with the euro area and a high level of flexibility to adjust to new economic circumstances. while in general most of the advantages of monetary integration will increase with the scale of the euro area, it is crucial that countries are sufficiently prepared for this intensified integration before they adopt the euro. the treaty with its convergence criteria provides the appropriate framework to assess whether a country shows a record of stability - oriented monetary and fiscal policy and therefore can be regarded as ready for monetary integration. let me at this point recall some of the convergence criteria to evaluate