If Paul Volcker went to war for price stability, current Federal Reserve Board Chairman Ben Bernanke went to war for the Fed’s other legal mandate: maximum employment. This part of the bank’s mission is to foster the kind of economy that will put people to work—a tough job during and after the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression. The bank bailout, the auto rescue, the 2009 stimulus bill, and the Fed’s low interest rates may have averted a deeper recession, but the job market remains moribund. Today, 7.9 percent of Americans are still unemployed, and millions of others have simply stopped seeking work, meaning they’re not even counted in the jobless rate.
So Bernanke got creative.
In this week's National Journal cover story, Catherine Hollander and Caren Bohan discuss Ben Bernanke's role in job creation at the Fed. In the video above, go behind the story with the authors themselves.
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