When you hire a nanny, the question you ask yourself is, 'What's best for my precious child?' And do you really want someone who feels that your motive in life is to minimize the amount you spend on your child?
— Janet Yellen
I've been collecting rocks since I was 8 and have over 200 different specimens.
There were a lot of manufacturing jobs lost over a long period of time and particularly after - during the Great Recession. We've had some recovery in manufacturing employment as the economy's recovered.
I don't feel that I've faced discrimination. I've had every chance to succeed and more, and I think that's what all women should have.
Housing is a relatively small sector of the economy, and its decline should be self-correcting.
Access to capital is important for all firms, but it's particularly vital for startups and young firms, which often lack a sufficient stream of earnings to increase employment and internally finance capital spending.
We will watch very carefully what is happening in the economy and adjust policies appropriate.
Social safety-net spending is an important form of public funding that helps offset disparities in family resources for children.
Some degree of inequality in income and wealth, of course, would occur even with completely equal opportunity because variations in effort, skill, and luck will produce variations in outcomes.
The Global Financial Crisis and Great Recession posed daunting new challenges for central banks around the world and spurred innovations in the design, implementation, and communication of monetary policy.
If strong economic conditions can partially reverse supply-side damage after it has occurred, then policymakers may want to aim at being more accommodative during recoveries than would be called for under the traditional view that supply is largely independent of demand.
My parents were born in 1906 and 1907. I think the experience of the Depression greatly influenced the way they thought about the world.
Although we work through financial markets, our goal is to help Main Street, not Wall Street.
Efforts to promote financial stability through adjustments in interest rates would increase the volatility of inflation and employment. As a result, I believe a macro-prudential approach to supervision and regulation needs to play the primary role.
Sometimes you have to make decisions without knowing all that you would like to know That's part of the job.
In the five years since the end of the Great Recession, the economy has made considerable progress in recovering from the largest and most sustained loss of employment in the United States since the Great Depression.
At the federal level, the fiscal stimulus of 2008 and 2009 supported economic output, but the effects of that stimulus faded; by 2011, federal fiscal policy actions became a drag on output growth when the recovery was still weak.
Firms are not always willing to cut wages, even if there are people lined up outside the gates to work. So why don't they?
In my junior year, I studied geology on Saturday mornings at the Museum of Natural History. Mineralogy has always been a major interest.
For decades, the pace of technological change in manufacturing has outstripped that in the economy as a whole. And, so, firms - manufacturing firms - have found it easier to continue producing by - with - reducing their workforces.
In effect, there has been a significant shortfall in the overall amount of monetary policy stimulus since early 2009.
Expanded credit access has helped households maintain living standards when suffering job loss, illness, or other unexpected contingencies.
The financial sector is vital to the economy. A well-functioning financial sector promotes job creation, innovation, and inclusive economic growth.
We have put in place policies through supervision and regulation that has greatly enhanced the safety and soundness of the banking system.
An important factor influencing intergenerational mobility and trends in inequality over time is economic opportunity.
Our ability to predict how the federal funds rate will evolve over time is quite limited because monetary policy will need to respond to whatever disturbances may buffet the economy.
New policy tools, which helped the Federal Reserve respond to the financial crisis and Great Recession, are likely to remain useful in dealing with future downturns.
Increased business sales would almost certainly raise the productive capacity of the economy by encouraging additional capital spending, especially if accompanied by reduced uncertainty about future prospects.
When I was very young, my father had an accident. He fell down a flight of stairs, fractured his skull, and lost sight in one eye.
If we were to raise interest rates too steeply, and we were to trigger a downturn or contribute to a downturn, we have limited scope for responding, and it is an important reason for caution.
We are focused on Main Street, on supporting economic conditions - plentiful jobs and stable prices - that help all Americans.
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) is committed to policies that promote maximum employment and price stability, consistent with our mandate from Congress.
Productivity depends on many factors, including our workforce's knowledge and skills and the quantity and quality of the capital, technology, and infrastructure that they have to work with.
Nationally, the share of mortgages that are underwater fell by about one-half between 2011 and 2014.
I studied piano for seven years and play for my own enjoyment.
It's important for market participants to have a sense of how we think about the economy and the appropriate path of policy, to look at incoming data, and to form their own judgments as to whether or not changes in policy would be appropriate.
Over a long period of time, technological change is something that has been important in reducing manufacturing employment - absolutely and as a share of jobs in the economy.
I am strongly committed to pursuing the dual goals that Congress has assigned us: maximum employment and price stability.
Many financial innovations such as the increased availability of low-cost mutual funds have improved opportunities for households to participate in asset markets and diversify their holdings.
I continue to think many of the factors holding down inflation are transitory... We want to be careful not to jump to a premature conclusion about what's in store for the U.S. economy.
Academia is very flexible, but I had a spouse who was very committed to being a completely full partner in our marriage. I think if you counted up how many hours each one of us logged in, he certainly gets more than 50%.
Housing wealth - the net equity held by households, consisting of the value of their homes minus their mortgage debt - is the most important source of wealth for all but those at the very top.
U.S. economic activity continues to expand, led by solid growth in household spending. But business investment remains soft, and subdued foreign demand and the appreciation of the dollar since mid-2014 continue to restrain exports.
There is always some chance of recession in any year. But the evidence suggests that expansions don't die of old age.
It's appropriate for the Fed to gradually and cautiously increase our overnight interest rate over time.
It's pretty rare to just talk to people who are having a tough time in the economy, to hear their individual stories.
We're charged by Congress with regulating financial institutions. We take that mission seriously. We are tough supervisors and regulators.
We necessarily operate in an environment in which there's a great deal of uncertainty. In such an environment, it makes sense to use a risk-management approach to identify and avoid the big mistakes. That's one reason I favor a cautious approach.
Labor force participation peaked in early 2000, so its decline began well before the Great Recession. A portion of that decline clearly relates to the aging of the baby boom generation. But the pace of decline accelerated with the recession.
The Federal Reserve's objectives of maximum employment and price stability do not, by themselves, ensure a strong pace of economic growth or an improvement in living standards. The most important factor determining living standards is productivity growth, defined as increases in how much can be produced in an hour of work.
