Biden, Joseph R Jr

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    Biden Discusses Holiday Shopping Season With Retail Executives

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    Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world.Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world. More

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    Why the Retail Industry Is Fighting Vaccine Mandates

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    The Biden administration has called on major companies to help fight the pandemic. Big chains want to get past the holiday staffing crunch first.The holiday shopping season has arrived, and retailers are ringing it in by doing everything from cutting prices to stocking showrooms to lure back customers who stayed at home last year. What the biggest of them are not doing is the one thing the White House and many public health experts have asked them to: mandate that their workers be vaccinated.As other industries with workers in public-facing roles, like airlines and hospitals, have moved toward requiring vaccines, retailers have dug in their heels, citing concerns about a labor shortage. And a portion of one of the country’s largest work forces will remain unvaccinated, just as shoppers are expected to flock to stores.At the heart of the retailers’ resistance is a worry about having enough people to work. In a tight labor market, retailers have been offering perks like higher wages and better hours to prospective employees in hopes of having enough people to staff their stores and distribution centers. The National Retail Federation, the industry’s largest trade group, has estimated that retailers will hire up to 665,000 seasonal workers this year.Walmart, the nation’s biggest private employer, declined to comment on its plans for vaccinations or testing.Eze Amos for The New York TimesMacy’s, for example, said it planned to hire 76,000 full- and part-time employees this season. The retailer has offered referral bonuses of up to $500 for each friend or relative whom employees recruit to join it. Macy’s asked corporate staff this fall to be vaccinated or test negative for Covid-19 to enter its offices. But store workers are a different story.“We have a lot of stores that have a lot of openings, and any ruling that we have to mandate those colleagues be vaccinated prior to Christmas is just going to exacerbate our labor shortage going into a really critical period for us,” Jeff Gennette, Macy’s chief executive, said in an interview.The industry showed how strongly it feels about the issue this month when the Biden administration directed companies with 100 or more workers to mandate vaccines or weekly tests by Jan. 4. Five days after that announcement, the National Retail Federation sued to stop the effort.“We all agree with the premise that vaccines are good and vaccines save lives,” Stephanie Martz, the chief administrative officer of the N.R.F., said in an interview Monday.“But by the same token, you can’t just say, ‘OK, make it so.’”The order is now held up in litigation, challenged by a number of lawsuits from a broad coalition of opponents, and could make its way to the Supreme Court. Court filings by the administration warn that blocking the rule would “likely cost dozens or even hundreds of lives per day.”Mr. Gennette, who sits on the board of the federation, said Macy’s would “love to see” the order put in place in the first quarter, which typically begins in February for the industry. That echoes the federation, which has said it wants to move the deadline back several months.“I support it — I would just love to have it on a timetable that works for us,” Mr. Gennette said. “We need more time.”Jeff Gennette, Macy’s chief executive, said he believed in the importance of employee vaccinations but didn’t want them required until after the holidays.Jeenah Moon for The New York TimesMany health experts say employee mandates are the only way to help the country emerge from the pandemic, as rampant misinformation and politicization of the coronavirus have helped suppress vaccination rates. The vaccination rate for those 12 and older in the United States is about 69 percent, with rates in some pockets of the country as low as 40 percent. Average daily case reports have increased more than 20 percent over the past two weeks.“It’s a pretty big ask, there’s no one denying that,” Crystal Watson, a senior scholar at the Center for Health Security at Johns Hopkins University, said of requiring vaccinations for retail employees. “But we’ve also tried a lot of other things to help people get vaccinated — and I think a mandate right now is what we need to get over that barrier.”Walmart, the nation’s biggest private employer, declined to comment on the federation’s lawsuit or its plans for vaccinations or testing. A spokeswoman for Target said the company had “started taking the necessary steps to meet the requirements of the new Covid-19 rules for large companies as soon as the details were announced.”Spokespeople for several retailers on the federation’s board, including Kohl’s, Dick’s Sporting Goods and Saks, declined to comment for this article.Concern about challenges in hiring workers is a major cause of retailers’ hesitancy.Jim Wilson/The New York Times“I think employers are embarrassed and ashamed by what they are objecting to and therefore use the N.R.F. as a cover,” said Stuart Appelbaum, president of the Retail, Wholesale and Department Store Union.He added: “If you had a choice of going to a workplace, or as a customer to go to a store, that said, ‘All our employees are vaccinated or tested,’ or another store that says, ‘We have no idea who’s vaccinated or tested,’ which would you choose? And that’s why, let’s say, Acme Department Store doesn’t want to advertise that it’s promoting bad public policy.”Many employers in industries, like retail, that have mandated vaccines at corporate offices have not required them for frontline workers, sharing concerns about challenges in hiring. But those workers, including about four million at stores, are among the most vulnerable. They interact frequently with the public and are less likely to be vaccinated themselves. Mandates at Tyson, United Airlines and several health care companies indicate that when faced with the prospect of losing their job, employees most frequently choose inoculation.“We know vaccine requirements work,” said Kevin Munoz, a spokesman for the White House. “The federal government, the country’s largest employer, has successfully implemented its requirement in a way that has boosted vaccinations and avoids any disruptions to operations.”.css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-16ed7iq{width:100%;display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;-webkit-box-pack:center;-webkit-justify-content:center;-ms-flex-pack:center;justify-content:center;padding:10px 0;background-color:white;}.css-pmm6ed{display:-webkit-box;display:-webkit-flex;display:-ms-flexbox;display:flex;-webkit-align-items:center;-webkit-box-align:center;-ms-flex-align:center;align-items:center;}.css-pmm6ed > :not(:first-child){margin-left:5px;}.css-5gimkt{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:0.8125rem;font-weight:700;-webkit-letter-spacing:0.03em;-moz-letter-spacing:0.03em;-ms-letter-spacing:0.03em;letter-spacing:0.03em;text-transform:uppercase;color:#333;}.css-5gimkt:after{content:’Collapse’;}.css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;-webkit-transform:rotate(180deg);-ms-transform:rotate(180deg);transform:rotate(180deg);}.css-eb027h{max-height:5000px;-webkit-transition:max-height 0.5s ease;transition:max-height 0.5s ease;}.css-6mllg9{-webkit-transition:all 0.5s ease;transition:all 0.5s ease;position:relative;opacity:0;}.css-6mllg9:before{content:”;background-image:linear-gradient(180deg,transparent,#ffffff);background-image:-webkit-linear-gradient(270deg,rgba(255,255,255,0),#ffffff);height:80px;width:100%;position:absolute;bottom:0px;pointer-events:none;}.css-1g3vlj0{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1g3vlj0{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-1g3vlj0 strong{font-weight:600;}.css-1g3vlj0 em{font-style:italic;}.css-1g3vlj0{margin-bottom:0;margin-top:0.25rem;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Still, companies mandating vaccines have faced protests or lawsuits. In some states litigation has been passed to impede it. Disney, for instance, paused a mandate for employees at Disney World in Florida after it became illegal for employers in the state to require workers to get the shot.The panic and precautions tied to Covid-19 have played out at retail stores throughout the pandemic and ensnared their workers.First, there was the divide between essential and nonessential businesses, which prompted chains like Guitar Center and Dillard’s to argue that they needed to stay open — and keep their employees coming in — despite the worsening public health crisis. Workers have been at the forefront of disputes around mask mandates and then mask enforcement. Retail chains like REI have been criticized for failing to inform employees about Covid cases in stores. Grocery store workers were not given priority access to vaccines in many states.Target’s chief executive attributed strong staffing numbers to perks and safety measures.Amr Alfiky/The New York Times“We’ve seen, throughout the pandemic, self-serving messages from employers who are putting profitability above their own employees’ health and safety,” Mr. Appelbaum said. “They have a misguided idea that it’s better for profits to take certain actions.”Business has boomed for some of the largest retailers, like Target and Walmart, throughout the pandemic. And while they are still facing rising prices and supply chain strain, executives have indicated recently that pressure on staffing has waned.“We feel really good about our staffing going into the holiday season,” Brian Cornell, Target’s chief executive, told CNBC last week. He added that the company’s retention numbers were “some of the strongest in our history,” which he attributed to perks and safety measures.Retailers are betting that consumers will be comfortable shopping in stores, where foot traffic is already higher than in 2020, regardless of the industry’s efforts to fight the new vaccination and testing requirements. And for those who are concerned about the lack of vaccinations, the companies have bolstered their e-commerce operations and curbside pickup offerings in the past year, though in-store shopping often leads to more purchases and fewer returns.When asked what Macy’s would tell concerned customers about shopping in stores, Mr. Gennette said: “What I would say is we encourage every one of our colleagues to be vaccinated and every colleague wears a mask in our stores and warehouses to protect themselves and others.”Last week, a number of health groups and experts, including the American Medical Association and the American College of Physicians, put out a statement imploring companies to move forward with the Labor Department rules.“The hope was to provide some perspective for business leaders to remind them this is not a political issue,” said Dr. Ashish K. Jha, dean of the Brown University School of Public Health, who was one of the signatories. Dr. Jha said it was important for companies in all industries to follow the rule, noting that retailers play a particular role, given the nature of their employee base. He said those measures should be put in place during the holiday season — not after — especially as that is when case numbers are expected to rise.“Do they really want to be superspreader places during the holiday season and be responsible for their employees getting sick and for their employees spreading it to customers?” Dr. Jha said. More

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    Initial unemployment claims last week fell to a half-century low.

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    Initial U.S. jobless claims
    Weekly initial unemployment insurance claims, seasonally adjusted. Latest data: week ending Nov. 20.Source: U.S. Employment and Training AdministrationBy The New York TimesInitial unemployment claims tumbled last week to their lowest point since 1969, the Labor Department reported Wednesday.New filings for state benefits totaled 199,000 on a seasonally adjusted basis, a decline of 71,000 from the previous week.The drop marks a milestone in the economy’s recovery from the pandemic. Weekly claims peaked at more than six million in April 2020 as the coronavirus forced businesses and consumers alike to shut down. As recently as early January, amid a winter resurgence of the coronavirus, new state claims exceeded 900,000 in one week.Filing for unemployment benefits has come down sharply since then, but remained well above prepandemic levels until very recently.Unemployment insurance was a key source of relief after the pandemic threw more than 20 million people out of work. To buttress state payments, emergency benefits were funded through federal pandemic relief bills, although those payments ceased in September, cutting off aid to 7.5 million people.Despite a summer lull, the economy has been showing signs of life lately. Employers added 531,000 jobs in October, and most economists expect growth to pick up in the final quarter of the year, boosted by healthy consumer spending.“Today’s data reinforce the historic economic progress we are making and the importance of building on that progress in the weeks ahead,” President Biden said in a statement about the unemployment claims report.As one measure of progress, Mr. Biden pointed to the most recent tally of unemployment benefits of all sorts, from early November, which showed the number of people with continuing claims — those filing for benefits who have already filed an initial claim — at 2.4 million. The figure right before Thanksgiving last year was more than 20 million.The biggest economic worry lately hasn’t been joblessness but inflation, which has been surging amid labor shortages, supply chain disruptions and higher energy prices.In a separate report Wednesday, the Commerce Department said that household spending rose 1.3 percent in October, while personal income jumped 0.5 percent, before adjusting for inflation. It also showed that prices climbed by 5 percent in the 12 months through October.The data for unemployment claims, although certainly welcome news, may not be quite as good as it seems. On an unadjusted basis, state claims rose last week. And employment remains 4.2 million below its level in February 2020, before the pandemic.“While the labor market is recovering, we think the latest drop in claims may be overstated,” said Gregory Daco, chief U.S. economist at Oxford Economics. “We suspect the decline last week may have been exaggerated by quirky seasonal adjustment factors and think we might see a bounce-back in the weeks ahead.” More

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    The Inflation Miscalculation Complicating Biden’s Agenda

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    Administration officials blame the Delta variant for a prolonged stretch of consumer spending on goods, rather than services, pushing up prices and creating a conundrum for the Fed.WASHINGTON — President Biden’s top economists have worried from the beginning of his administration that rising inflation could hamstring the economy’s recovery from recession, along with his presidency. Last spring, Mr. Biden’s advisers made a forecasting error that helped turn their fears into reality, a calculation that spread to this week’s decision to renominate the Federal Reserve chair.Administration officials overestimated how quickly Americans would start spending money in restaurants and theme parks, and they underestimated how many people wanted to order new cars and couches.Mr. Biden’s advisers, along with economists and some scientists, believed that widespread availability of coronavirus vaccinations would speed the return to prepandemic life, one in which people dined out and filled hotel rooms for conferences, weddings and other in-person events.Instead, the emergence of the Delta variant of the virus over the summer and fall slowed that return to normalcy. Americans stayed at home, where they continued to buy goods online, straining global supply chains and sending the price of almost everything in the economy skyward.“Because of the strength of our economic recovery, American families have been able to buy more products,” Mr. Biden said this month at the Port of Baltimore. “And — but guess what? They’re not going out to dinner and lunch and going to the local bars because of Covid. So what are they doing? They’re staying home, they’re ordering online, and they’re buying product.”That view is the closest thing the administration has offered to an explanation for why the White House was surprised by the size and durability of a price surge that has hurt Mr. Biden’s poll numbers and imperiled part of his economic agenda in Congress. From the administration’s perspective, the problem is not that there is too much money sloshing around, as Republicans and some economists insist, but that consumers are throwing an unexpectedly large amount of that money at a narrow set of things to buy.Put another way: If Mr. Biden had sent people travel vouchers or DoorDash gift cards for services — instead of sending Americans direct payments as part of his $1.9 trillion rescue plan in March — the inflation picture might look different right now..css-1xzcza9{list-style-type:disc;padding-inline-start:1em;}.css-3btd0c{font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-size:1rem;line-height:1.375rem;color:#333;margin-bottom:0.78125rem;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-3btd0c{font-size:1.0625rem;line-height:1.5rem;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}}.css-3btd0c strong{font-weight:600;}.css-3btd0c em{font-style:italic;}.css-1kpebx{margin:0 auto;font-family:nyt-franklin,helvetica,arial,sans-serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.125rem;line-height:1.3125rem;color:#121212;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-family:nyt-cheltenham,georgia,’times new roman’,times,serif;font-weight:700;font-size:1.375rem;line-height:1.625rem;}@media (min-width:740px){#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-1kpebx{font-size:1.6875rem;line-height:1.875rem;}}@media (min-width:740px){.css-1kpebx{font-size:1.25rem;line-height:1.4375rem;}}.css-1gtxqqv{margin-bottom:0;}.css-19zsuqr{display:block;margin-bottom:0.9375rem;}.css-12vbvwq{background-color:white;border:1px solid #e2e2e2;width:calc(100% – 40px);max-width:600px;margin:1.5rem auto 1.9rem;padding:15px;box-sizing:border-box;}@media (min-width:740px){.css-12vbvwq{padding:20px;width:100%;}}.css-12vbvwq:focus{outline:1px solid #e2e2e2;}#NYT_BELOW_MAIN_CONTENT_REGION .css-12vbvwq{border:none;padding:10px 0 0;border-top:2px solid #121212;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-rdoyk0{-webkit-transform:rotate(0deg);-ms-transform:rotate(0deg);transform:rotate(0deg);}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-eb027h{max-height:300px;overflow:hidden;-webkit-transition:none;transition:none;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-5gimkt:after{content:’See more’;}.css-12vbvwq[data-truncated] .css-6mllg9{opacity:1;}.css-qjk116{margin:0 auto;overflow:hidden;}.css-qjk116 strong{font-weight:700;}.css-qjk116 em{font-style:italic;}.css-qjk116 a{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration:underline;text-decoration:underline;text-underline-offset:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-thickness:1px;text-decoration-thickness:1px;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:visited{color:#326891;-webkit-text-decoration-color:#326891;text-decoration-color:#326891;}.css-qjk116 a:hover{-webkit-text-decoration:none;text-decoration:none;}Inflation has risen across wealthy nations over the past year, but it has risen faster in the United States, where prices rose 6.2 percent in October from the year before. America’s inflation has been exacerbated, in part, by Mr. Biden and his predecessor, Donald J. Trump, pouring more fiscal support into the U.S. economy than their counterparts did elsewhere, at a time when consumption patterns shifted and did not rapidly snap back to normal.Republicans, and even some left-leaning economists such as the former Obama administration officials Lawrence H. Summers and Jason Furman, have blamed the rapid price increases across the economy on the aid package that Mr. Biden signed in the spring. They say the package’s direct assistance to Americans, including $1,400 checks to individuals and enhanced benefits for the unemployed, fueled more consumer demand than the economy could bear, driving prices skyward.Mr. Biden is betting that those critiques are largely wrong — and that the Fed would be wrong to follow their advice. His aides say excess consumer demand is not the driver of the fastest price increases America has seen in decades, and that the economy needs more fuel, not less, to complete the job of delivering wage and employment gains to historically marginalized workers.The president wants Fed Chairman Jerome H. Powell, whom he reappointed this week for a second term, to join him in that wager — by avoiding quick increases in interest rates that could choke off growth, and which would not address what White House officials see as the real cause of inflation: the virus.“We’re still dealing with the difficult challenges and complications caused by Covid-19 that are driving up costs for American families,” Mr. Biden said on Monday at the White House, in announcing Mr. Powell’s reappointment and laying the blame for inflation at the feet of the resurgent virus.A cafe that closed this summer in Washington. The resilience of the coronavirus slowed Americans’ return to spending on in-person services like dining and tourism.Alyssa Schukar for The New York TimesWhile prices are up broadly across industries and sectors of the economy, there is a wide gulf in the inflation rates of physical things people buy and the services they consume. The Consumer Price Index for services is up 3.6 percent from the previous year. For durable goods, it is up 13.2 percent. And those goods represent a much larger share of America’s consumer spending than they did before Covid-19 hit.On the eve of the pandemic, about 31 percent of American consumer spending went toward goods, and the rest toward services. In September, that share had risen to about 35 percent, down just slightly from its pandemic highs. Those few percentage points made a huge difference for supply chains, which were suddenly carrying record-shattering levels of toys, electronics and other goods from country to country, and straining under the load.The $1.9 trillion rescue plan “juiced demand, and importantly for the inflation story, much of that demand played out in reduced consumption of in-person services and increased demand for manufactured goods,” Jared Bernstein, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers, said in a speech this week.“That, in tandem with the impact of the virus on transportation logistics, has played a role in elevated price growth.”Understand the Supply Chain CrisisCard 1 of 5Covid’s impact on the supply chain continues. More

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    Lael Brainard is Tapped For Vice Chair of the Federal Reserve

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    President Biden said on Monday that he would nominate Lael Brainard as the Federal Reserve’s vice chair, the No. 2 role at the Fed and one that could give her a stronger mandate to influence everything from the cost of money to the future of digital cash.Ms. Brainard, who has been a Fed governor since 2014, is already part of the inner policy circle of the Fed chair, Jerome H. Powell. But her elevation to vice chair will make her Mr. Powell’s closest collaborator on monetary policy matters if she is confirmed by the Senate.The vice chair holds little power officially, but in practice is regularly the person who floats new ideas in speeches and who helps to guide a Fed chair’s thinking on policy matters.Ms. Brainard’s elevation comes at a pivotal economic moment. The Fed is wrestling with how to set policy at a time when inflation has shot higher but millions of jobs remain missing. Like Mr. Powell, Ms. Brainard has been wary of reacting to high prices too swiftly by lifting interest rates to choke off growth, worried that it could diminish job market opportunities. But both are carefully watching the price trajectory, with an eye on ensuring that high inflation does not become a long-lasting trend.“I’m committed to putting working Americans at the center of my work at the Federal Reserve,” Ms. Brainard said during a news conference Monday at the White House, where Mr. Biden introduced his picks. “This means getting inflation down at a time when people are focused on their jobs and how far their paychecks will go.”Ms. Brainard also pledged to ensure that the economy would be “sustainable for future generations” and that the Fed would reflect “the diversity of the communities we serve.”Her views on financial regulation and climate change have won her plaudits from some progressives but drawn concern from Republicans, raising questions about how much support she might win in the Senate. Senator Patrick J. Toomey of Pennsylvania, the top Republican on the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, applauded Mr. Powell’s reappointment but couched his support for Ms. Brainard.“While I have concerns about regulatory policies that Governor Brainard would support as vice chair, I look forward to meeting with her to discuss these and other matters,” Mr. Toomey said in a statement on Monday.Senator Kevin Cramer of North Dakota, another Republican on the committee, also said he had concerns about Ms. Brainard’s regulatory policies and looked forward to discussing those matters with her.Ms. Brainard has been a major proponent of a more active Fed role in making sure the financial system is prepared for potential fallout from climate change. She gave a speech at the Fed’s first climate-focused conference in 2019 and has recently focused on the need for climate scenario analysis for banks, which would test how well they would hold up amid extreme weather events, sea level change and other climate-tied risks.As the sole Democrat left at the Fed board in Washington after 2018, Ms. Brainard used her position to draw attention to efforts to chisel away at bank rules, a process that was being driven by Randal K. Quarles, the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, who is stepping down in December. In the process, she created a rare public disagreement at the consensus-driven central bank, dissenting from policy changes more than 20 times in 2019 and 2020.Ms. Brainard often released detailed explanations of her dissents, laying out a road map of what changes were made and why they might be problematic. For instance, when the Fed streamlined its stress-test approach, she supported simplification in spirit — but disagreed with how it was done.“Today’s rule gives a green light for large banks to reduce their capital buffers materially, at a time when payouts have already exceeded earnings for several years on average,” she said, publishing an analysis of how she came to that conclusion, one that Mr. Quarles disagreed with.Her new position will not give her more direct say over financial regulation than she previously had — governors all have a single vote on regulatory decisions — but she and her record of dissents could be a resource for the new person coming into the vice chair for supervision job.Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat and chairman of the Banking, Housing, and Urban Affairs Committee, said Ms. Brainard had “spent her life fighting for a stronger, fairer economy.”“At this moment, when workers are finally starting to see more power in our economy, we need a vice chair who understands that our economic recovery must strengthen our communities and put workers first,” Mr. Brown said in a statement.Ms. Brainard would be the third woman in the Fed’s 108-year history to hold the job, following in Janet L. Yellen’s and Alice Rivlin’s footsteps. Her new role would put her in a powerful position to weigh in on the path ahead for digital currency as the Fed contemplates whether it needs to issue one, something some other global central banks have done or are in the process of doing. Her more elevated position could also give her a bigger bully pulpit on climate-related issues.Ms. Brainard is a longtime Washington policymaker. She played a leading role in European debt crisis and Chinese currency deliberations during the Obama administration as a Treasury Department official, and she worked for the National Economic Council during the Clinton administration. She earned her economics doctorate at Harvard and was an up-and-coming professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology before moving to Washington to pursue a career in policy.Ms. Brainard was initially viewed as a leading candidate for Biden administration Treasury secretary, and her name continues to surface as a potential successor should Ms. Yellen, who now holds that top policy role, step down. More

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    Biden Will Keep Jerome Powell as Federal Reserve Chair

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    WASHINGTON — President Biden said Monday that he would renominate Jerome H. Powell, the Federal Reserve chair, to another four-year term, opting for policy continuity at a moment of rapid inflation and economic uncertainty and betting that the Fed will do more to help workers reap the gains of the pandemic recovery.The much-awaited decision was a return to tradition in which the central bank’s top official is reappointed regardless of partisan identity — a norm bucked by former President Donald J. Trump, who appointed Mr. Powell instead of renominating Janet L. Yellen.While some progressive Democrats criticized Mr. Powell’s reappointment, the move was primarily greeted with bipartisan praise that suggested an easy path to confirmation.Mr. Biden also said he planned to nominate Lael Brainard, a Fed governor whom many progressive groups had championed to replace Mr. Powell, to serve as the Fed’s vice chair, a move that helped mollify some criticism on the left.The president and his top aides believe that Mr. Powell has done well in supporting the economy through the pandemic recession and a halting recovery, while amassing credibility by standing up to political pressure from Mr. Trump. But Mr. Biden is also making a calculated bet that the Fed chair will be more aligned with his views on the economy and, in particular, inflation, than he is with Republicans in the Senate who have demanded quicker action from the Fed to tamp down rising prices.“At this moment, of both enormous potential and enormous uncertainty for our economy we need stability and independence at the Federal Reserve,” Mr. Biden said during remarks at the White House. “And we need people of character and integrity, who can be trusted to keep their focus on the right long-term goals of our country, for our country.”The stakes in the choice are unusually high.Inflation has jumped because of booming consumer demand, tangled supply lines and labor shortages that have helped to push up the cost of used cars, couches and even food and rent. Yet millions of workers are missing from the labor market compared with before the pandemic.The central bank is charged with keeping consumer prices stable while striving for maximum employment, and striking that balance could require difficult policy choices in the months ahead.Mr. Biden, who is facing a delicate balancing act within his own party, deliberated over the pick for months. He consulted with both progressive and moderate Democrats along the way, seeking their views on inflation, worker considerations, financial regulation and climate change policy at the Fed.That included Senator Elizabeth Warren, who had called Mr. Powell “a dangerous man,” and suggested she would not support his renomination during a testy hearing in late September. Mr. Biden met with Ms. Warren on Nov. 9 in the Oval Office to discuss Fed appointments and called her last Thursday, before he had settled on a pick, according to a person with knowledge of the discussions.On Friday, Mr. Biden called Mr. Powell and Ms. Brainard to inform them that he had made his choice. The decision was influenced in large part by Mr. Biden’s belief that he and Mr. Powell are philosophically aligned when it comes to keeping interest rates low and continuing to support the economy until more people are working and wages are rising.On Monday, Mr. Biden said he believed the Fed had more work to do to get to “maximum employment.”“That’s an economy where companies have to compete to attract workers, instead of workers competing with each other for jobs, where American workers get steady wage increases after decades of stagnation, and where the benefits of economic growth are broadly shared by everyone in the country, not just concentrated for those at the top,” he said.Yet some economists, and many Republicans, say the Fed runs the risk of allowing inflation to spin out of control if it does not start to pull back efforts to fuel economic growth, with workers demanding increasingly higher wage increases to cover rising costs, resulting in 1970s-style inflation.Mr. Biden has been suffering politically as prices rise for food, gas and airplane tickets. The president has repeatedly tried to reassure Americans that his economic policies will ultimately calm inflation, a message he is expected to repeat during remarks on Tuesday.But his larger economic agenda has become tangled in the politics of price increases, particularly as the president pushes Senate Democrats to coalesce around a $2.2 trillion climate change and social policy bill that Mr. Biden says will ease inflationary pressures in years to come but Republicans warn will stoke higher prices immediately.Mr. Biden said he was certain that both Mr. Powell and Ms. Brainard would work to stabilize inflation and keep the economic recovery on track.“We’re in a position to attack inflation from the position of strength, not weakness,” he said.Mr. Powell, who appeared alongside the president and Ms. Brainard at the White House, acknowledged the challenge ahead.“We know that high inflation takes a toll on families, especially those less able to meet the higher costs of essentials like food, housing and transportation,” he said, adding that the Fed would “use our tools both to support the economy and a strong labor market and to prevent higher inflation from becoming entrenched.”Mr. Powell’s reappointment suggests that the White House, which has a chance to fully reshape the Fed, is not aiming to completely overhaul the institution.The Biden administration already has one vacant governor role to fill, and two more seats will open early next year, giving Mr. Biden room to appoint at least three of seven governors. The president must also fill several leadership roles, including the Fed’s vice chair for supervision, a powerful position given its influence on bank oversight.Mr. Biden has been under pressure from progressives and moderate Democrats to pick a diverse slate of leaders for the Fed who would prioritize tough bank regulation and do what they could to address climate change risks in the financial system.Lael Brainard is the president’s choice to be the Federal Reserve’s vice chair.Justin T. Gellerson for The New York TimesMr. Powell has faced opposition from some progressive Democrats, who have faulted him for not using the Fed’s tools to help combat climate change and for voting to loosen financial rules for the nation’s biggest banks.He has also come under criticism for an ethics scandal that took place while he was overseeing the central bank. Two of the Fed’s 12 regional presidents made significant financial trades for their private accounts in 2020, when the Fed was actively rescuing many markets from pandemic fallout.Mr. Biden tried to ease at least some of those concerns, saying that Mr. Powell had assured him that the Fed would “accelerate” efforts to address and mitigate the risk that climate change poses to the economy.Mr. Biden also said he planned to soon nominate a new vice chair for supervision. In conversations with Mr. Biden, Mr. Powell convinced the president he would follow the lead of that person in setting financial regulatory policy, according to people with knowledge of the matter.Whether that will be enough to appease Mr. Powell’s critics remains to be seen. Ms. Warren said in a statement on Monday that she would not vote for Mr. Powell’s confirmation. Still, she did not recount her litany of concerns about him.Another critic, Senator Sheldon Whitehouse of Rhode Island, who opposed Mr. Powell’s reappointment, said on Monday that was “disappointed” in Mr. Biden’s decision. But he did not say whether he would vote no on his nomination.“I sincerely hope that, if confirmed, Powell will reassess his past opposition to utilizing the Fed’s regulatory tools to minimize climate-related risks to the financial sector,” he said.Other Democrats were more supportive, including Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, who praised Mr. Powell for helping steer the economy through the pandemic. Mr. Brown’s position is important — he is the chairman of the Senate Banking Committee, which oversees the Fed and will handle the confirmation hearings for both Mr. Powell and Ms. Brainard.Republicans, who supported Mr. Powell when he was nominated as chair by Mr. Trump, also lauded Mr. Biden’s decision.Senator Patrick J. Toomey, Republican of Pennsylvania and the ranking member on the Senate Banking Committee, released a statement saying he would support Mr. Powell’s nomination, as did several other of his party’s senators. That full-throated support did not extend to Ms. Brainard, however, with Mr. Toomey and other Republicans saying they had some concerns about her views on financial regulation and other issues.The big challenge ahead for Mr. Powell is deciding when — and how quickly — to remove pandemic-era economic support that the central bank has been using to cushion workers, businesses and financial markets.The Fed has so far decided to slow its large bond-purchase program, a first step toward withdrawing monetary policy support that will leave it more nimble to raise interest rates next year if reining in the economy becomes necessary.The federal funds rate has been set to near-zero since March 2020, keeping many types of borrowing cheap and helping to fuel home and car purchases and other types of demand that in turn set the stage for strong hiring. Raising it could cool off growth and weaken inflation.Yet trying to slow price gains would come at a cost. Workers are still trickling back after severe job losses at the onset of the pandemic, and the Fed is hoping to give the job market more space and time to heal. That’s especially true because continued waves of infection may be keeping many people from searching for work, either out of health concerns or because they lack child care. More

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    Biden Renominates Powell as Fed Chair

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    Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world.Whether it’s reporting on conflicts abroad and political divisions at home, or covering the latest style trends and scientific developments, Times Video journalists provide a revealing and unforgettable view of the world. More

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    Behind the Powell Pick: A Bet the Economy Has Room to Grow

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    President Biden’s decision to renominate Jerome H. Powell to head the Federal Reserve reflects the president’s belief that despite high inflation, America’s economy still has a long way to go to deliver strong gains to women, Black and Hispanic Americans and low-wage workers trying to climb into the middle class.Mr. Biden made clear during a White House appearance that he believes Mr. Powell is philosophically aligned with his vision that the central bank needs to keep interest rates low and continue supporting the economy until it reaches maximum employment.“That’s an economy where companies have to compete to attract workers, instead of workers competing with each other for jobs, where American workers get steady wage increases after decades of stagnation, and where the benefits of economic growth are broadly shared by everyone in the country, not just concentrated for those at the top,” Mr. Biden said Monday.The president’s decision is also based on his belief that Mr. Powell and Lael Brainard, the Fed governor whom Mr. Biden nominated for vice chair on Monday, share his views on stabilizing inflation while being careful not to snuff out the recovery before the labor market heals.It is a gamble on several fronts for the president. He is betting that Mr. Powell will be more aligned with his views on the economy than he is with Republicans in the Senate who have decried rising inflation for months and demanded action from the Fed. Many of those Republicans endorsed Mr. Powell quickly on Monday, expressing hope that he would act swiftly to combat inflation.The president is also betting that his team is correct in its economic diagnosis that the inflation risk is fading and marginalized groups of workers still need help to reap the full gains of economic growth.Mr. Biden and his aides view the recent burst of inflation, which surged to its highest levels in three decades last month, as largely the product of crimps in global supply chains — and not a function of monetary policy that necessitates quick rate increases from the central bank.The decision to renominate Mr. Powell and to elevate Ms. Brainard is the sum of a wide range of political and economic calculations. Chief among them was choosing the chair with the desire, and bipartisan support, to pursue full employment.But administration officials say other considerations also favored Mr. Powell’s reappointment, like the need to maintain central bank stability in the midst of the economic disruption of a pandemic and the record of independence that Mr. Powell built over a four-year term that included withering criticism from former President Donald J. Trump, who appointed him to the chairmanship.Mr. Powell also appears to have defused, in the eyes of the president and his aides, liberal Democrats’ concerns that on his watch the Fed has not regulated big banks and other financial institutions stringently enough. In conversations with Mr. Biden leading up to the decision, Mr. Powell convinced the president he would follow the lead of the Fed’s vice president for supervision — an open position that Mr. Biden has yet to fill — in determining the central bank’s policies on financial regulations.Mr. Biden is expected to announce his pick for that job early next month, and Democrats expect him to nominate someone who will take a hard line on banks, a key demand of Senator Elizabeth Warren of Massachusetts, a progressive who opposes Mr. Powell’s renomination and has called him “dangerous.” Mr. Biden recently discussed his Fed picks with Ms. Warren, and he has been in regular contact with Senator Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the Democrat who leads the banking committee. More