near multidecade lows. further, the strong labor market created new opportunities for teens and younger workers, groups whose employment prospects, and even long - term career trajectories, are especially sensitive to the cyclical state of the economy. 3 beyond narrowing gaps between workers actively searching for a job, the strong pre - pandemic labor market also helped draw many new participants into the labor force. among prime - age workers, those aged 25 to 54, the labor force participation rate began rising again around 2015, as shown in figure 4, reversing a declining trend. this was true among both men, the solid black line, whose participation had been steadily declining since the 1950s, and women, the dashed red line, whose participation had previously see jefferson ( 2005, 2008 ). see oreopoulos, von wachter, and heisz ( 2012 ). - 4peaked in early 2000. labor force participation among women was rising especially briskly in the months just before the pandemic, essentially reversing its entire decline over the previous 20 years. while this partially reflects broader demographic trends such as increasing educational attainment, participation was rising for both women with and without a college degree after 2015, suggesting that the strong labor market played a part in this reversal. turning now from employment and participation to earnings, nominal wages were growing solidly before the pandemic. as with gains in employment, the strong labor market was especially beneficial for some groups. most noticeably, as shown in figure 5, wage growth for the bottom quartile of earners, the solid red line, started to pick up about five years into the expansion, in late 2014, and by 2019 was significantly stronger than for workers in higher earnings quartiles, the solid purple line. 4 these differences in wage growth are important, as they imply convergence in levels and, therefore, declining wage inequality as the bottom of the distribution catches up to higher earners. similarly, wages were growing faster for non - white workers relative to white workers in 2019, though differences by educational attainment were less pronounced at the time. looking back now, the u. s. economy in 2019 was in a good place. the labor market was tight but not overheating, bringing widespread gains to workers. further, had it not been for the sudden and dramatic interruption of the covid - 19 pandemic, this nominal wages in the figure are measured by the atlanta fed ’ s

treasury that is statutorily responsible for the implementation of the bank secrecy act, are now drafting the new compliance guidance and examination procedures. as part of the rollout of the new bsa / aml examination manual, nationwide conference calls and regional outreach meetings will be held for bankers interested in understanding the procedures. bankers are encouraged to participate in these voluntary sessions. we are also putting a great deal of effort into examiner training to promote consistency. in addition, the federal reserve and the other federal bank supervisory agencies signed a memorandum of understanding with fincen last year to share critical information about banking organizations'compliance with the law. by providing pertinent bank secrecy act information to fincen, which is adding staff to fulfill its responsibilities, the federal reserve and the other regulators can now better coordinate their supervision with fincen, thus further reducing the potential for unwarranted compliance burdens on the industry. the bottom line is that any bank of any size should always be on guard for suspicious activities, and whenever they know, suspect, or have reason to suspect a violation of law, they should file suspicious activity reports according to federal reserve and fincen regulations. bankers have to do enough due diligence to know when a transaction is suspicious - for instance, if it has no business purpose or if it seems structured to get around bank secrecy act regulations. on a related matter, in april the agencies issued guidance on money - services businesses, or msbs, and how to handle them. the concern among bankers, which may result in part from misconceptions about the requirements of the bank secrecy act, was that they were being held responsible for monitoring the activities of their customers. we hope that our guidance will reassure financial institutions that it is not our view that all money services firms present an unacceptably high risk of money laundering or other illegal activities, that we are not instructing banks to close msb accounts, and that we do not expect the banks to regulate msbs. basel i amendments finally, as i'm sure you are aware, bank regulators have been working at the international level over the past several years to revise the basel accord, the risk - based capital framework. capital adequacy is a perennial concern of bank supervisors. the proposed revisions, especially the advanced approaches of basel ii, represent a sea change in how banks determine their minimum level of required capital for regulatory purposes. the advanced approaches are intended to better align regulatory capital with inherent risks and banks'internal