Evelyn Reynolds

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The number of long-term unemployed fell by 317,000 from December, according to the January jobs report issued Friday.
There are now 1.7 million Americans out of work at least six months. They accounted for 25.9% of all unemployed workers in January, down from 31.7% a month earlier.
Long-term unemployment poses serious financial risks for households, at a time when federal benefits have expired.

A job seeker receives information from a recruiter during a job fair in Miami on Dec. 16, 2021.
Eva Marie Uzcategui/Bloomberg via Getty Images

Long-term unemployment fell significantly in January, continuing a downward trajectory from its pandemic-era peak after having plateaued in recent months.
The number of Americans out of work for at least six months declined by 317,000 since December, to about 1.7 million in January, according to U.S. Department of Labor data issued Friday.

The long-term unemployed accounted for 25.9% of all unemployed Americans in January, down from 31.7% the month prior.
That monthly decline (5.8 percentage points) is the largest since March 2021, when long-term joblessness began a steady descent. Until January, the share had leveled off around 32% over the three prior months.

“What we’ve seen over the last year is a steady stream of workers back into the labor force and employment,” said Daniel Zhao, a senior economist at the career site Glassdoor.
“Long-term unemployment is a reflection of that,” he added. “As the recovery marches on, more opportunities open up for workers who’ve been unemployed for a longer period of time.”

Financial risks

Long stretches of unemployment pose serious financial risks for households. And a big share of long-term-jobless workers can weigh on the U.S. economy.

Aside from a prolonged lack of job income, it becomes more difficult to find another job as unemployment drags on. The odds of earning a lower future wage also increase.
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Skills may get rusty and connections to the workforce (like old networks and industry friends) break down. Businesses more readily pass over resumes with a big gap in work history.
The long-term jobless are also typically ineligible for unemployment benefits. A federal pandemic-era program paying benefits to such workers ended on Labor Day (and a few months earlier in many states).

Omicron surprise

Declining long-term joblessness came on the back of an unexpectedly strong January jobs report on Friday.
The U.S. economy added 467,000 jobs last month. The Labor Department also revised its job-growth estimates for November and December much higher — there were a combined 709,000 more jobs added those two months than initially thought.

Many economists had predicted a much weaker showing due to a surge of Covid-19 cases since early December fueled by the highly contagious omicron variant.
Elevated daily caseloads led some businesses to close their doors temporarily as illness caused staffing shortages and led to reduced customer demand.  

“Job growth can plow forward in the face of pandemic headwinds,” Zhao said.
However, the labor market hasn’t yet fully recovered to its prepandemic strength. While overall number of long-term unemployed fell by about 2 million people during 2021, their ranks are still 570,000 larger than in February 2020.

The U.S. economy also remains almost 3 million million jobs short of its prepandemic mark.
“I think we are on track for a strong job market recovery,” Zhao said. “But we’re not quite at the finish line yet.”

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The January jobs report showed some signs of optimism for the U.S. labor recovery, particularly for Black workers, who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
The Black unemployment rate dipped to 6.9% last month from 7.1%.
The Black labor force participation rate rose to 62% in January — the same as white workers.

A Now Hiring sign hangs near the entrance to a Winn-Dixie Supermarket on September 21, 2021 in Hallandale, Florida.
Joe Raedle | Getty Images

The January jobs report showed some signs of optimism for the U.S. labor recovery, particularly for Black workers, who have been disproportionately impacted by the pandemic.
U.S. payrolls added 467,000 jobs in the first month of the new year, the Labor Department reported Friday, surprising economists who expected Covid omicron outbreaks to impact hiring. The unemployment rate held fairly steady at 4% in January versus 3.9% in December.

For Black workers, the unemployment rate dipped to 6.9% last month from 7.1%. What’s more, the Black labor force participation rate rose to 62% in January — the same as white workers.

“We’ve seen this really encouraging closing of the Black-white labor participation gap, and it appears to have fully converged,” said Bradley Hardy, an economist at Georgetown University. “This is very much a result of the Black labor participation rate rising on a gradual basis, really throughout this pandemic over an almost two year period.”
The labor force participation rate “can oftentimes be a proxy for optimism and willingness to participate in the labor market,” Hardy said. “The fact that that’s actually a gap that is — for now, at least — closed is quite important.”
The improvement in unemployment was felt most acutely by Black women, whose unemployment rate fell to 5.8% last month from 6.2%.

The drop in the Black female unemployment rate in January comes after Black women were the only race and gender group whose unemployment rate worsened in December.

The month-to-month economic readings for Black women and other minority groups can be particularly volatile due to smaller population size, according to Elise Gould, senior economist at the Economic Policy Institute.
“The longer-term story is that Black workers have remained at an unemployment rate about twice as high as white workers and white workers’ unemployment rate is far lower than Black workers have ever experienced,” Gould said. The white unemployment rate was 3.4% in January.
Hardy also recommended looking at data over a two- to three-month basis.
“It’s cautious optimism that … the trend is continuing to head in the right direction. It’s good news,” Hardy said. “But at the same time, I think we have to remain vigilant about how we interpret the trend.”

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Nonfarm payrolls rose 467,000 in January, well ahead of the 150,000 Wall Street estimate.
Leisure and hospitality led the gains, while professional and business services and retail also posted big numbers.
Wages surged, rising 0.7% for the month and 5.7% for the year.
Massive revisions juiced up the November and December totals by 709,000.

Job growth rose far more than expected in January despite surging omicron cases that seemingly sent millions of workers to the sidelines, the Labor Department reported Friday.
Nonfarm payrolls surged by 467,000 for the month, while the unemployment rate edged higher to 4%, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. The Dow Jones estimate was for payroll growth of 150,000 and a 3.9% unemployment rate.

The stunning gain came a week after the White House warned that the numbers could be low due to the pandemic.

Covid cases, however, have plunged nationally in recent weeks, with the seven-day moving average down more than 50% since peaking in mid-January, according to the CDC. Most economists had expected January’s number to be tepid due to the virus, though they were looking for stronger gains ahead.
Along with the big upside surprise for January, massive revisions sent previous months considerably higher.
December, which initially was reported as a gain of 199,000, went up to 510,000. November surged to 647,000 from the previously reported 249,000. For the two months alone, the initial counts were revised up by 709,000. The revisions came as part of the annual adjustments from the BLS that saw sizeable changes for many of the months in 2021.
Those changes brought the 2021 total to 6.665 million, easily the biggest single-year gain in U.S. history.

“The benchmark revisions helped the numbers a bit just because it moved out some of the seasonal factors that have been at work. But overall the job market is strong, particularly in the face of omicron,” said Kathy Jones, chief fixed income strategist at Charles Schwab. “It’s hard to find a weak spot in this report.”
For January, the biggest employment gains came in leisure and hospitality, which saw 151,000 hires, 108,000 of which came from bars and restaurants. Professional and business services contributed 86,000, while retail was up 61,000.
Earnings also rose sharply, accelerating 0.7%, good for a 12-month gain of 5.7% and providing confirmation that inflation continues to gather strength. That yearly move was the biggest gain since May 2020 when wage numbers were distorted by the pandemic. The rate of wage gains, however, still lags inflation, which was running around 7% in December as gauged by the consumer price index.
There was more good jobs news: The labor force participation rate rose to 62.2%, a 0.3 percentage point gain. That took the rate, which is closely watched by Fed officials, to its highest level since March 2020 and within 1.2 percentage points of where it was pre-pandemic. The labor force participation rate for women rose to 57%.
A more encompassing level of unemployment that counts discouraged workers and those holding part-time jobs for economic reasons dropped to 7.1%, a 0.2 percentage point decline and to just above its pre-pandemic level. Those working part-time for economic reasons fell by 212,000 in January, with the total level down 37% from a year ago.

“These data make it clear that the labor market ahead of Omicron was much stronger than previously believed, and it’s very tempting to argue that the [January] data mean that all danger of an Omicron hit has passed,” wrote Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. ” We’re a bit more cautious than that, not least because the near-real-time data fell through most of [January] and have only just begun to recover.”
The job gains brought employment back to about 1.7 million below where it was in February 2020, a month before the pandemic declaration.
Stocks were mixed on the report and volatile. Government bond yields spiked, with the benchmark 10-year Treasury note rising to 1.91%.
Markets have been anticipating an inflation-fighting Fed to hike interest rates at least five times in 2022, so the resilient jobs market is likely to do little to dissuade that sentiment. The probability of the central bank increasing its benchmark short-term rate by half a percentage point, or 50 basis points, rose to 27% after the jobs report, according to the CME’s FedWatch gauge. The Fed usually hikes in 25 basis point increments.
The chance of six increases this year rose to 51% following the report.
“They definitely will feel more behind the curve,” Jones said. “I don’t think there’s a 50 basis point hike coming in March, but I think speculation about it will build and that will continue to push up on yields.”
The job gains were broad-based, with transportation and warehousing adding 54,000, local government education rising by 29,000 and health care moving higher by 18,000.
The unemployment rate for Blacks edged lower to 6.9%. The rate for Asians also declined, falling to 3.6%.
The gain in jobs followed a report earlier in the week from payrolls processing firm ADP, which had indicated a drop of 301,000. The two counts also differed widely in December, though the BLS revision brought the total closer to the ADP count of a 776,000 gain for that month.

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Without clarity on how quickly the labor market can shake off Omicron, the Fed will have difficulty applying the data to its interest rate strategy.Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, has compared setting monetary policy to stumbling through an unlit room: You feel your way to the door cautiously to avoid making a painful mistake.The analogy is likely to ring especially true after the Omicron-jumbled job report for January, as the virus obscures the pace of progress in the job market and leaves policymakers in the dark. But the Fed may lack the luxury of creeping slowly through the dinginess this time.Mr. Powell and his colleagues are poised to raise interest rates for the first time since 2018 in March, a move meant to cool off the economy as inflation runs at its fastest pace in nearly 40 years. It will likely be in the uncomfortable position of making that move — and signaling what comes next, as markets are pointing to as many as five 2022 rate increases — at a time when the latest job market data look lackluster at best, bleak at worst.The Fed will look past a few months of virus-depressed job market data as officials try to assess the actual strength of the economic rebound: The Omicron variant is already in retreat in the United States, and there’s little reason to expect an extended lull in hiring after a year of breakneck labor market progress.But the virus flare-up and its economic repercussions underline a challenge that is likely to confront the Fed throughout 2022 as it pares back its support. It’s hard to know what will happen next in a coronavirus-stricken business environment.“We’ll be humble and nimble,” Mr. Powell pledged of the central bank’s policy path, speaking at a news conference last month.The Fed typically navigates by watching incoming labor market data — especially the unemployment rate, lately — and inflation data. But it could take a few months for the jobs picture to clear, and in the meantime, inflation is running hot. Used-vehicle prices, which have been a big driver of overall price increases, might be on the cusp of stabilizing but have yet to cool off notably. Gasoline prices are headed back up, food is costing more and rents have been increasing steeply.That is likely to leave the Fed, which typically takes away its help at moments of strong labor market progress, moving when the job market is hitting a bump.“It’s the Omicron fog,” said Diane Swonk, chief economist for the accounting firm Grant Thornton. “It’s not going to give us visibility.”Fed officials are trying to make sure that they do not fall behind the curve on high inflation, allowing it to become so locked into consumer and business expectations that it becomes a permanent feature of the economic landscape. How the Fed strikes the balance — and how much it slows down the economy with its rate increases this year — could have important political implications, too. Voters are already glum about the economy’s prospects, and President Biden is suffering in the polls. More

LIVERPOOL, England — For the past few weeks Vincent Snowball hasn’t needed to use the weekly food bank that runs out of a church near Liverpool’s city center. But he’s still there each Tuesday, laying out fabric swatches to advertise his upholstering services, and to socialize with the people he grew up with.Like many people across Britain, Mr. Snowball, 61, has been forced to cut down his already modest expenses to stabilize his finances. Prices are rising at their fastest pace in three decades.“I go to Tesco and I get a shock,” he said, referring to Britain’s ubiquitous supermarket chain. The prices there are “troubling,” he said. Instead he shops at Aldi, the rapidly growing chain that claims to be the cheapest supermarket in Britain.Prices are rising steeply in the United States and across Europe, driven by rising energy costs and supply-chain issues triggered by the easing of pandemic rules. But in Britain, there is a fear that sharply escalating heat and electricity bills, combined with food inflation, will push millions more into poverty.The Bank of England on Thursday lifted interest rates for the second time in two months — moving before the Federal Reserve or the European Central Bank. But policymakers acknowledge there is little they can do about the global factors driving inflation.Up and down the country, people are turning their heat down or off, switching to cheaper supermarkets, taking fewer car trips, cutting out takeout and restaurant meals, and abandoning plans for vacations.Because natural gas prices have risen so much, Vincent Snowball rarely turns on his heat, using it mainly for hot water. “I’m very conscious about what I use,” he said.Mary Turner for The New York TimesThursday brought more painful news when the government’s price cap on energy bills was raised by 54 percent, or about 700 pounds ($953) annually, reflecting high global prices for natural gas. The increase will affect 22 million households beginning in April. That same month, a large rise in National Insurance, a payroll tax that finances the National Health Service, among other things, will also take effect, further shrinking take-home pay.Although inflation is expected to peak in April, at 7.25 percent, Bank of England economists say household finances will continue to erode: For the next two years, household incomes after inflation and taxes will be less than the year before, the bank said. This will be the third stretch of time in about a decade that real wages have shrunk in Britain.This period is “somewhat unprecedented because it comes on the back of a very huge Covid shock” and Brexit, said Arnab Bhattacharjee, a professor of economics at Heriot-Watt University in Edinburgh and a researcher at Britain’s National Institute of Economic and Social Research.Mr. Snowball’s gas bill has risen, after a surge in natural gas prices in Europe late last year, and so he mostly uses it for hot water. Despite living in the northwest of England, he rarely turns the heating on. “I’m very conscious about what I use,” he said.But there are limits to how much Mr. Snowball can withstand. He receives about £300 ($403) in state support toward his £550 monthly rent and another £213 a month in working tax credits, financial support for people on low incomes. There aren’t any luxuries to cut.Having cup of tea and a chat at the food pantry run by Micah Liverpool, a charity. Since the pandemic began, the number of Britons receiving the main public income benefit has doubled.Mary Turner for The New York Times“There’s millions of people like that,” Mr. Snowball said.Although the British economy has slowly shaken off much of the torpor from the sharp recession brought on by the coronavirus, millions aren’t enjoying the recovery. Since the start of the pandemic, the number of people receiving Universal Credit, the main government income benefit, doubled to six million. Since the peak nearly 11 months ago, it has fallen only to 5.8 million. The number of people using food banks also jumped, according to the Trussell Trust, a nonprofit that provides emergency food packages, and independent groups.A cost-of-living crunch was forewarned last fall but “what came as a surprise this time round was the degree of food price inflation,” Mr. Bhattacharjee said. “This has not happened in the past decade.” In December alone, food and nonalcoholic drink prices rose 1.3 percent, the fastest monthly pace since 2011.For more and more people, it’s impossible to ignore. Katie Jones’s main food shopping trip, which she does twice a month, used to cost up to £80; now it’s more likely to be £100. Ms. Jones, 33, works full time in Liverpool city center at a branch of a national coffee shop chain. She lives across the River Mersey with her partner and their three children where, in December, the energy bills increased from £95 a month to £140.“We no longer have takeaways in the house,” she said. “Partly it was for health reasons, but I also noticed just how much it costs.” And there are fewer date nights with her partner because she can’t push the cost of them out of her head.In Earlsfield, the local food bank has had to cut more expensive food and toiletry items from its packages.Mary Turner for The New York TimesFood inflation is hurting those who are trying to help. Managers of the Earlsfield Foodbank in southwest London recently decided to cut items from their offering — including juice, snacks, cheese and peanut butter — because they are too expensive now. And they will provide fewer toiletries and household items, such as laundry detergent.Each week, the food bank buys a wide variety of fresh vegetables and fruit, and other food, to supplement its donations. In the past few weeks, the cost of supplies has increased worryingly.“That number is going up and isn’t really sustainable throughout the year,” said Charlotte White, the manager.As the cost of purchases rises, so does the list of people seeking help. Last week, eight more people registered with Earlsfield Foodbank, and 71 people received food parcels. In March 2020, they were averaging 25 guests a week, with fewer families and working people.“Families are already at, if not beyond, breaking point,” said Ruth Patrick of the University of York and the lead academic of Covid Realities, a national project in which about 150 low-income parents and care-providers have documented their experiences through the pandemic. “We get a really dominant message coming through about fear and anxiety and worry about how people will get by.”“Probably, I was quite comfortable last year,” said Joanne Barker-Marsh. “Now there is no buffer.” She is considering selling her home, which is becoming less affordable.Mary Turner for The New York TimesThrough the project, Joanne Barker-Marsh, 49, has found some emotional, and at times financial, support. She lives in a two-bedroom house on the outskirts of Manchester with her 12-year-old son Harry, and worries that, with its high ceilings and uncarpeted floors, it is too cold. Understand Rising Gas Prices in the U.S.Card 1 of 5A steady rise. More

The prices have climbed to their highest level since 2011, according to a U.N. index. It could cause social unrest “on a widespread scale,” one expert said.WASHINGTON — Food prices have skyrocketed globally because of disruptions in the global supply chain, adverse weather and rising energy prices, increases that are imposing a heavy burden on poorer people around the world and threatening to stoke social unrest.The increases have affected items as varied as grains, vegetable oils, butter, pasta, beef and coffee. They come as farmers around the globe face an array of challenges, including drought and ice storms that have ruined crops, rising prices for fertilizer and fuel, and pandemic-related labor shortages and supply chain disruptions that make it difficult to get products to market.A global index released on Thursday by the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization showed food prices in January climbed to their highest level since 2011, when skyrocketing costs contributed to political uprisings in Egypt and Libya. The price of meat, dairy and cereals trended upward from December, while the price of oils reached the highest level since the index’s tracking began in 1990.Maurice Obstfeld, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics who was formerly chief economist at the International Monetary Fund, said that food price increases would strain incomes in poorer countries, especially in some parts of Latin America and Africa, where some people may spend up to 50 or 60 percent of their income on food.He said that it wasn’t “much of an exaggeration” to say the world was approaching a global food crisis, and that slower growth, high unemployment and stressed budgets from governments that have spent heavily to combat the pandemic had created “a perfect storm of adverse circumstances.”“There’s a lot of cause for worry about social unrest on a widespread scale,” he added.Even before the pandemic, global food prices had been trending upward as disease wiped out much of China’s pig herd and the U.S.-China trade war resulted in Chinese tariffs on American agricultural goods.But as the pandemic began in early 2020, the world experienced seismic shifts in demand for food. Restaurants, cafeterias and slaughterhouses shuttered, and more people switched to cooking and eating at home. Some American farmers who could not get their products into the hands of consumers were forced to dump milk in their fields and cull their herds.Two years later, global demand for food remains strong, but higher fuel prices and shipping costs, along with other supply chain bottlenecks like a shortage of truck drivers and shipping containers, continue to push up prices, said Christian Bogmans, an economist at the International Monetary Fund.Drought and bad weather in major agricultural producing countries like Brazil, Argentina, the United States, Russia and Ukraine have worsened the situation.The I.M.F.’s data shows that average food inflation across the world reached 6.85 percent on an annualized basis in December, the highest level since their series started in 2014. Between April 2020 and December 2021, the price of soybeans soared 52 percent, and corn and wheat both grew 80 percent, the fund’s data showed, while the price of coffee rose 70 percent, due largely to droughts and frost in Brazil.Understand Inflation in the U.S.Inflation 101: What is inflation, why is it up and whom does it hurt? Our guide explains it all.Your Questions, Answered: We asked readers to send questions about inflation. Top experts and economists weighed in.What’s to Blame: Did the stimulus cause prices to rise? Or did pandemic lockdowns and shortages lead to inflation? A debate is heating up in Washington.Supply Chain’s Role: A key factor in rising inflation is the continuing turmoil in the global supply chain. Here’s how the crisis unfolded.While food prices appear set to stabilize, events like a conflict in Ukraine, a major producer of wheat and corn, or further adverse weather could change that calculation, Mr. Bogmans said.The effects of rising food prices have been felt unevenly around the world. Asia has been largely spared because of a plentiful rice crop. But parts of Africa, the Middle East and Latin America that are more dependent on imported food are struggling.Countries like Russia, Brazil, Turkey and Argentina have also suffered as their currencies lost value against the dollar, which is used internationally to pay for most food commodities, Mr. Bogmans said.In Africa, bad weather, pandemic restrictions and conflicts in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Ethiopia, Nigeria, South Sudan and Sudan have disrupted transportation routes and driven up food prices.Joseph Siegle, the director of research at National Defense University’s Africa Center for Strategic Studies, estimated that 106 million people on the continent are facing food insecurity, double the number since 2018.“Africa is facing record levels of insecurity,” he said.While shopping at a market in Mexico City’s Juarez neighborhood on Thursday, Gabriela Ramírez Ramírez, a 43-year-old domestic worker, said the increase in prices had strained her monthly budget, about half of which goes to food. Inflation in Mexico reached its highest rate in more than 20 years in November, before easing slightly in December.“It affects me a lot because you don’t earn enough, and the raises they give you are very small,” she said. “Sometimes we barely have enough to eat.”The impact has been less severe in the United States, where food accounts for less than one-seventh of household spending on average, and inflation has become broad-based, spilling into energy, used cars, dishwashers, services and rents as price increases reach a 40-year high.Yet American food prices have still risen sharply, putting a burden on the poorest households who spend more of their overall budget on food. Food prices rose 6.3 percent in December compared with a year ago, while the price of meat, poultry, fish and eggs jumped 12.5 percent, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.The Biden administration has tried to restrain some of these increases, including with an effort to combat consolidation in the meat packing business, which it says is a source of higher prices.Inflation F.A.Q.Card 1 of 6What is inflation? More

Senate Republicans on Thursday peppered Fed nominee Sarah Bloom Raskin with questions over whether she would steer the institution into climate change.
President Joe Biden has nominated Raskin to be vice chair of supervision, a key banking regulatory post.
The hearing also was held to question economists Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson, whom Biden also nominated to fill vacant Fed positions.

Sarah Bloom Raskin, nominated to be vice chairman for supervision and a member of the Federal Reserve Board of Governors, gestures during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee confirmation hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, D.C., U.S., February 3, 2022.
Ken Cedeno | Reuters

Senate Republicans on Thursday peppered the nominee to be the Federal Reserve’s top banking watchdog with questions over whether she would steer the institution into climate change and other areas outside of its mandate.
President Joe Biden put up Sarah Bloom Raskin to the post of vice chair for banking supervision, arguably the most important regulator for the industry.

Though Raskin said that previous writings from her that cast fossil fuels in an unfavorable light would not cause her to put the Fed “in the business of choosing winners and losers,” GOP members of the Senate banking panel weren’t convinced.
“With respect to Ms. Raskin, I have to say this is one of the most remarkable cases of confirmation conversion I have ever seen, although she doesn’t acknowledge the contradiction of what she has said today compared to the things she has been saying and writing for years,” ranking Republican Sen. Patrick Toomey of Pennsylvania said.
Toomey specifically pointed to commentary pieces Raskin authored that spoke of allocating capital away from fossil fuels businesses. In one May 2020 piece for The New York Times titled “Why Is the Fed Spending So Much Money on a Dying Industry?” Raskin discouraged the central bank from using its emergency lending powers deployed at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic to help big energy companies.
“Climate change threatens financial stability; addressing it can create economic opportunity and more jobs,” Rasking wrote then. “The decisions the Fed makes on our behalf should build toward a stronger economy with more jobs in innovative industries — not prop up and enrich dying ones.”

Asked repeatedly whether her writings meant she would push banks not to lend money to fossil fuel companies, Raskin said doing so is beyond the Fed’s purview.

Fed officials have said they are working with banks to update their planning to include financial impacts from climate-related events. There are no plans as of now to include those provisions in stress tests for large institutions.
“It is not the role of the Federal Reserve to get engaged in favoring one sector,” Raskin said. “I’m saying I view it as outside the bounds of the law. The Federal Reserve was set up by Congress and with particular mandates, and as a lawyer I live within those mandates.”
The hearing also was held to question economists Lisa Cook and Philip Jefferson, whom Biden also nominated to fill vacant positions on the Fed’s Board of Governors.
Cook in particular faced questions on her views on inflation and her resume, which Sen. Bill Hagerty, R-Tenn., accused Cook of embellishing.
“Today’s hearing is not just about vetting them,” Toomey said. “It’s really about the Fed’s independence and whether or not we’re going to abandon a core part of our democracy.”
But committee Chair Sen. Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio, said the Republican criticisms were politically fueled. He pointed out that Raskin, who already has served as a Fed governor, has breezed through previous confirmation hearings with bipartisan support.
“We have seen a coordinated effort by some to paint her as a radical,” Brown said. “That characterization requires a suspension of common sense.”
The committee is expected to vote on the nominations, along with those of current Fed Chair Jerome Powell and Lael Brainard, a governor whom Biden seeks to promote to vice chair, later this month.

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