efforts over the last four years to ensure that our framework did not hamper banks ’ ability to perform their critical function to lend to households and businesses and serve as financial intermediaries. when the covid event began last year, the magnitude of the economic and financial disruptions was staggering. voluntary and mandated quarantines, lockdowns, and social distancing efforts hammered aggregate demand, caused unfathomably large job losses clustered in certain service sectors, and sharply increased uncertainty. workplaces closed, travel was curtailed, and global supply chains were disrupted. large sectors of the global economy, such as tourism and transportation, came to an abrupt stop. as concerns about the virus and measures to contain it spread, these effects grew. at the same time, certain critical financial markets seized up or ceased to function effectively. short - term liquidity markets were strained as investors “ dashed for cash, ” focusing on their own liquidity. the commercial paper market, where companies raise cash by issuing short - term debt, seized up to an extent similar to the fall of 2008. and as in the financial crisis, investors in certain prime and tax - exempt money market funds with immediate cash needs submitted redemption 4 / 6 bis central bankers'speeches requests that resulted in significant outflows from these funds. equity prices plunged and yields on corporate bonds widened significantly. perhaps i can simply underscore the peril of the time by noting that the treasury market — the lifeblood of the financial system — became highly dysfunctional, something that didn ’ t even happen in 2008 or 2009. this was truly a massive global shock. as businesses closed and consumers stayed home, 22 million jobs were lost in scarcely two months. the unemployment rate soared from 3. 5 percent in february 2020 to 14. 8 percent in april 2020, well above the highest rates experienced in the united states since the great depression. 2 in addition to the immediate and apparent impact of the covid event, there was also tremendous uncertainty regarding the path of future government responses. macroeconomic experts, both at the federal reserve, and elsewhere, constructed many different plausible scenarios for how the economy would fare, and this was reflected in scenariowriting related to stress tests. our june 2020 stress tests included a sensitivity analysis, designed in april 2020, that used three alternative downside scenarios that spanned the wide range of projections made at that time by professional forecasters. those scenarios included peak unemployment rates ranging from 16 percent to 19. 5 percent and assumed

mervyn king : changes in the uk economy and the role the bank of england can play in supporting them speech by mr mervyn king, governor of the bank of england, at the black country chamber of commerce, west midlands, 19 october 2010. * * * ladies and gentlemen, it is good to be back in the heart of britain – in the black country – because the bank of england has strong connections with the area. both i and deputy governor paul tucker hail from wolverhampton. and i am delighted that all nine members of the bank ’ s monetary policy committee are in the west midlands this week on an mpc road - show to see for themselves the state of business in the region. the black country is the home of the original industrial revolution. too often those historic events are painted as just that – past glories of little relevance today. but there is no better place to see evidence of how the british economy can adapt than in the black country. indeed, one example can be found behind this building. dudley canal no. 1 was part of a network of canals, central to the industrial revolution, along which the products made here – especially iron and steel – were transported throughout the country. at its peak, there were 5, 000 miles of canals in britain. of course, the importance of canals as the arteries of industry later declined and by the late 1960s only 2, 775 miles were navigable. but the regeneration of urban communities, and the efforts of british waterways, have reversed this decline. the number of miles is now increasing. last year, 13 million people visited our canals and the number of boats is actually higher now than during the industrial revolution. such examples are important because our economy faces the prospect of change again. after an unprecedented financial crisis and deep recession, the uk economy needs to rebalance. tonight i want to talk about what those changes will entail and the role which the bank of england can play in supporting them. the bank of england ’ s key role has always been to ensure that the economy is supplied with the right quantity of money – neither too much nor too little. for fifty years, my predecessors struggled to prevent there being too much, so leading to inflation. i find myself in the opposite situation having to explain that there is too little money in the economy. but, in the wake of the financial crisis, and the sharp downturn that followed, the amount of money in the economy as a whole – broad money – is now barely growing at