Political action necessary. What do you think we and you can do to raise the alarm that the biggest and Fastest Growing cost must be addressed . I will follow the path of my predecessor to say, not become a regular commentator on fiscal issues but limit myself to a couple of overarching points. The first is we need to get on a sustainable fiscal path. It is time to be doing that now. The second thing is when fiscal changes are made, it is important that to the extent possible they be directed at enhancing the economy. We cant effect productivity other than keeping prices stable and regulation on a balanced basis. Run risecomes to over time. You have much more authority over that. To the extent fiscal policy can focus on ways to increase attachment to the labor force and create incentives for more skills, to have greater investment, that is a healthy thing. Thank you very much. The chair recognizes the gentleman from new york. Mr. Powell, welcome. The Treasury Department is currently undergoing a review of cra and will be recommending changes to the banking agencies, including the Federal Reserve. My question is do you believe that a Financial Firms demonstrated pattern and practice of racial discriminating and lending should be considered during a cra examination . I am familiar with that process and take the point of it whethero inquire into cra policies are in fact providing benefits to their intended beneficiaries. We are providing our own input into that process. In terms of the answer to your question, i think it is currently the practice that such considerations are considered in cra exams. It is currently but i am concerned someone to defang cra and take away as part of the process the history as far as discrimination practices and patterns. Mostis why i am asking you since the treasury will be looking at the new i am a fan, i think we need to update but you should take into consideration Racial Discrimination. I am asking you, what is your position on that . I have not taken the position on that. I want to see the overall work that comes out of this and evaluate it on that basis. I may will come to the view that you have. I want to remind you that the response toress Racial Discrimination and redlining. That was one of the primary reasons of the implementation of cra. If you are even thinking of stripping up practice and patterns of discrimination you are getting the Reason Congress did cra in the first place. Noteems to me that should even be part of the dialogue. Fact, we have an article lending discrimination plaguing st. Louis. We can go from city to city across america. I have real concerns about your answer just now because to even think about removing that from the cra as much is im and advocate of renewing, when you look at where we are now and how thinking is done, it is completely different than when we initiated, but the essence of it was to stop Racial Discrimination. That we take a serious view of any kind of Racial Discrimination and look at it through a variety of consumer affair tools. This. Me ask i would like to followup with you on this matter. We can talk about these tax cuts. Taxmuch of corporate savings you think will actually go toward wages as opposed to stock buybacks, Capital Investments and mergers . I want to let you know before you answer Morgan Stanley announced 43 of Corporate Tax andngs will go to buybacks dividends which enriches the top 1 of those major investors. 19 would go to mergers. 17 would go to investment. 13 would go to onetime bonuses and raises. Nine pharmaceutical companies have already announced over 50 lawion in buyback since the was passed. How much of these taxes will go into salaries or wages and help the income disparity to increase and grow wider . We have powell particular responsibilities. We do not have estimates of that kind of thing. We dont have a fed estimates what that number would be. The chair recognizes the german from minnesota. Thank you chair powell for being here. I want to go back to something i think was touched on when you began your testimony. You spoke about the importance of tailoring regulations to fit the specific scope and practices of a Financial Institution. Your quote was even as we have been working to implement improvements, we have also sought to tailor regulations supervision to the size and risk profile of banks, particularly community institutions. I want to make sure your view on continuing to tailor regulations to the specific institution has remained the same. You are still committed to doing that . Is at theowell it heart of what we are doing at the moment, focusing on smaller institutions and make sure that regulations are no more burdensome that it needs to be. We need everyone in the Financial Services food chain from the largest banks in the world to the small Family Community banks on main streets around the country. Chairman powell indeed. Small banks creating a lot of the jobs and have a disproportionate share of Small Business lending. We really want that credit to flow and we dont want regulation to inappropriately create too much burden. Earlier, the secretary of mnuchin testified and expressed his commitment to make changes in statute to the way regulators taylor regulations based on the size and complexity of a Financial Institution. Would you also support this legislative effort where necessary to put these tailor regulations in statute . Yes. We would and we have. The devil is in the details but as a general matter we could see law changes that would enable us to tailor regulation to smaller institutions. I want to move on to another topic. On the importance of getting regulations right to benefit main street and rural america, minnesota sixth Congressional District is home to the finest and most productive farmers and manufacturers in the world. Many of these individuals making a positive Economic Impact on my district are calmed by the current formulation of the supplemental leverage ratio that fails to recognize the exposure reducing nature of initial client margin. This bank capital role is increasing, making it more the clearto use derivatives market. I hope as you and your colleagues review the slr you ame to the same conclusion coalition of republican and Democrat Members on this committee have that we must recognize the exposure reducing nature and a revised bank capital rule. You commit to working with us on the committee who want constituents to have access to affordable and competitive clear derivatives markets . Chairman powell i will. We think we need the leverage ratio as a high and hard backstop to riskbased capital and we think the current calibration is not appropriate. We are yet recalibration that would address that concern. I want to move on to one other topic before my time runs out. Five of your Monetary Policy report, february 23 refers to the labor market. There a couple of specific entries with respect to numbers of people unemployment. It is essentially full employment. I believe on page five it erences the percentage of ablebodied working aged does that are actually in the workforce. 62 . This is still abnormally low. Dont you have concern about that number . You talk about retirement being part of this. Baby boomers leaving the market place. Doesnt this have something to do with the disincentives created by our rail far system in terms of giving people an opportunity to get into the job market . We focus onell labor force per dissipation all the time. Certainly worthy of a longer discussion which i would be delighted to have. The chair recognizes the gentleman from massachusetts. Thank you for being here, and welcome. Some of my colleagues of talked about where we are. The economy seems to be getting better. I personally think a lot of the goods we are seeing today is a result of the actions we took several years ago to stabilize secure and improve the economy and it is working its way through the system. I believe that debate for another day. Comments associate my with the cra. I want to expand it in little more. I presume the fed would not be interested in an economy that just worked for wall street and did not work for main street. I assume the fed would not be interested in an economy that just worked for taxes and did not work for new york. I presume the fed has some degree of interest in at least of thestribution benefits of a good economy. Is that a fair assumption . Chairman powell i would say i think we want prosperity to be high and broadly spread. We dont have a lot of tools. I respect that. You have limited tools for a lot of things. That is obviously one of the things. Thank you for that. Are you familiar with a relatively new british law that has been enacted that requires companies of 250 employees to report income and wages on the basis of gender . Chairman powell no sir. The first to do that was barclays. That report pursuant to british law shows women at barclays earned 26 less than men and received bonuses that are 60 lower. I know some of those reasons toht have reasons as position but it goes towards the idea of equitable distribution of benefits of the economy. Are you familiar with a rule proposed by the equal Employment Opportunity commission in 2016 that was supposed to go into effect in march that would have required similar reporting by American Companies over 100 employees, on the basis of race and ethnicity . Chairman powell knows her. The Term Administration stopped it. It was proposed in 2016. Companies were given two years to work their way in. Last august the Trump Administration said no. We dealt want to know how you pay women, how you pay people of racial groups or ethnicity groups. I personally think that is her renders. I would say again, if you are interested in an economy that there is some degree of equitable and the Community Need statistics and numbers. Numbers make for good paul commentary but they dont help us address the problem. Thatmething like that doesnt seem to have impacted barclays in any particularly bad way but provides us the information we have to go forward to argue for pay equity across the board. I am a white male. I am not interested in my success being at the expense of people who are not white men. I would ask is the fed interested the would you be interested in pursuing that . You oversee 7000 entities. Mosttty large parade pretty large. Would you want some investigation . Chairman powell i am not at all familiar with the british bill or the eeoc proposed rule. These are the kind of things that congress should consider. E have an important job to do for now we are going to stick to that and achieve that. I respect that. Some degree of equitable distribution of the benefits of a good economy is your job. Not perfect equity but in the one aspect you can control, overseeing 7000 Financial Institutions. Dont you think it is a fair women,o ask how they pay africanamericans, hispanics . You dont think that as a fair thing for you to ask . Chairman powell i dont think it is a question for the fed. Boy. That is a great answer. The time has expired. Thank you. Thek you for coming before committee. Chairman powell, it is my understanding the fed has been developing an alternative to , has there been a robust costbenefit analysis conducted regarding the impact to shifting relative to to this . Say the powell let me situation with libel is such that the Financial Conduct Authority in london is said they will not compel banks to submit submissions to the panel after the end of four years. The fca can no longer guarantee the continuation. Beingwere to stop published, there are contracts in the world and that is that as the potential of being significant problem. Solving it is a high priority for us. There will be cost to doing so but they would be trivial in comparison to the failure to be ready for this change should it be necessary. What is a result of the impact . We are seeking impact from businesses that will be subject to this at the moment. Honestly though, the cost of failure to act would be potentially quite high. Rates go the opposite anticipatedo you anything that arises . Do you expect any Systemic Risk in moving . I do. Systemic risk would be increased. Think a riskfree rate, which is used to price the vast derivative markets and not so much the bank lending markets, it is more derivatives based now, which would be an improvement to have. When it was selected through were Community Banks and regional banks part of that process . Chairman powell some of the regional banks were. It is principally affecting the derivatives business in the first instance. We had a lot of different groups around the table and at this point we are broadening that to include other Financial Institutions. Do you anticipate any potential cost relative to committee banks . I dont think they should not be meaningful full costs. Likes if things continue to participate would you encourage a multiple rate approach . Yes. We have always said if people that iskeep using libor fine. What we are doing is preparing for the risk that it would not be published. We are not saying that is what would happen but we need to be ready. Of what do you anticipate will be the change that you will bring to the fed relative to transparency . Arerman powell we committed to being as transparent as we possibly can about Monetary Policy and regulation. If i remember the fed didnt even published a statement and now you look at the massive number of things we publish. I think we can continue on that path. In regulation it is important we be transparent. We are working across a broad range of issues including stress testing. In general i think it is appropriate for us to always be working on that. 50 fewer banks in North Carolina than in 2010. Do you see fed policy that would assist committee banks . A brief answer from the witness. Aairman powell it is longrunning trend. We dont like to see it and dont want to make it worse. The chair recognizes the gentleman from missouri. You for holding this hearing, thank you chairman powell for your testimony today. The u. S. Ree that housing is in a recovery mode as and theransactions Housing Market in general . Powell it is ongoing. Along those lines, i want to questionhere mr. Meeks you. I have shared with your staff a recent article from my hometown homebuyersbout black continuing to be denied conventional Mortgage Loans at a higher rate than whites, even when controlling for income alone amount and neighborhood. In the st. Louis metropolitan area africanamericans who applied for conventional mortgages are two and a half times more likely to be denied than nonhispanic whites. That is according to two years of recent data. As you know, where there is loan activity, houses have a chance to sell. Warehouses sell people move in. Where people move then restaurants, Community Centers and Grocery Stores are built. Of that is happening in low to moderate income neighborhoods in st. Louis or elsewhere in this country. My question is, what can the Federal Reserve do to ensure africans for home mortgages are treated equally, and the bad are eliminated from this process or change their policies . Can you give me any direction in that area . Gladman powell i would be to. Racial discrimination in mortgage lending is unacceptable. Wherever we have authority we will use it to stop that and punish it when it does happen. We have some of authority here. Where we have it for the banks supervisepervise, we carefully and aggressively to try and find these problems. 1968, Fair Housing Act of prohibited those practices of redlining. I share with you this article because i wanted a more extensive response from you on what action we can take against bad actors like u. S. Banks who have cited in that article the fifth largest Financial Institution in this country, who have denied mortgages across the board in the community that i represent. Activity. Es economic it doesnt help it. I would love to collaborate with your office on how we stop these policies and practices that are discriminatory. Hopefully you will be willing to work with me on that. Chairman powell yes. Well President Trump tried to take credit for december unemployment numbers showing africanamerican unemployment at its lowest recorded level, this is part of a longterm trend that started under the obama administration, which has steadily declined for the past seven years. Racial disparities continue to persist with the Unemployment Rate for whites currently at 33 point 5 . Unemployment for africanamericans at 7. 7 . But africanamerican unemployment more than twice as high as white unemployment, clearly more progress is needed. Share with us your vision for persistentacking unemployment among africanamericans. Chairman powell what we can do on that front is we can take seriously our obligation to pursue maximum employment. We understand while the national Unemployment Rate is low and in many regions the unemployment is even lower than 4. 1 come you come from places where unemployment is in the numeral twos. The chair recognizes the gentleman from oklahoma. Thank you, thank you for being here. Question i think you are my fourth chairman to be able to visit with in this environment since i have been a member of this committee. I would like to discuss an issue with you that you and i have already discussed and my good regarding. As a bill the supplemental leverage ratio clearing margin. Support. Ames phil has it would offset those margin amounts for purposes of slr because it is a Risk Management tool. Fed can affect this change in the legislation. Your predecessor showed a willingness to look at the issue. I hope you would be willing to consider that yourself. Thank you. We are taking a careful look at the enhanced supplemental leverage ratio. Our view is the leverage ratio is important for banks. It should be a backstop to riskbased capital. The enhancement that we put into went in 2013 in that range to far and it unfortunately seems to be deterring some low risk wholesale type activity that we one of those is claimant clearing. Our way of addressing that is going to be to lower the calibra tion of the enhancement to the supplemental ratio. That gets done what needs doing there. Clearly, something needs to be addressed. I represent oklahoma. The act unit and main street business, we are a commodity driven economy and the price of commodities is a reflection of supply and demand and while supply is not an issue for the id to be concerned about, represent industries where Technology Advancement has been used amazingly successfully. Whether it is precision agriculture increasing the output of farms and ranches with fewer inputs or on the energy side of the equation, horizontal drilling and 3d seismograph, the most amazing Technological Advancements of the last 10 years, and that has increased supply. Whether it is oil and gas or wheat and cattle, prices are half of what they were in 2014. Lets discuss where you think the fed projections will have Economic Growth and demand in the year or two or three down the road in the u. S. If demandly picks up chairman powell that is typically the case. I havent updated my own projections. Generally, it does feel to me that the next couple of years look quite strong. You should see Strong Demand from consumers and business investing. Pathld expect to be on the to good years in the economy. With inflation moving up to 2 , i would think that should create a Good Environment for people in your district who are in the commodities business as well. The rising tide raises all ships. Thank you, mr. Chairman. With the gentleman yield to the chairman would the gentleman yield to the chairman . Of course, mr. Chairman. In the 1. 5 minutes he had remaining, i had a question, chairman powell, dealing back on the interest on excess reserves. I asked your predecessor this question and the answer was not made clear to me. Statute, theunder rate must be im trying to find the exact language cannot be above the usual level of shortterm market Interest Rates. Yet, we know that the fed has been paying a price over the fed funds rate paying over libor and certainly currently paying 150 basis points, yet, our constituents typically receive 10 basis points on their savings account. What doesurious on the phrase above the usual level of shortterm market Interest Rates mean. In your rulemaking that ioer, it allowed the rate to get pegged to your primary credit rate, but that is an administrative rate. Legally, is there any cap to the Interest Rate you can pay in an ioer . Could you pay 400, 500 basis points . Chairman powell as you just did, we are not permitted under the law to pay above the general level of shortterm Interest Rates. I would look at that and see commercial paper and wholesale deposits and shortterm Interest Rates, money market funds, things like that. It is a tool set, to move those Interest Rates around. You are paying 150 basis points. Our constituents are getting 10 basis points. Chairman powell retail deposits are sticky on the way up. They generally come up with a lag. The time of the gentleman has expired. The chair will acknowledge the gentleman from massachusetts. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Thank you for your attendance. A couple of weeks ago, there was a story in the wall street journal around etfs. I want to get your thoughts on this. The particular story noted that shares of everything from many factors to banks to Oil Production companies are rebounding together after tumbling in unison earlier in the month. One factor contributing to the close correlation among the s ps various sector was driven by the growing popularity of Exchange Traded funds. Etfs usually invest in wide swaths of the market. When that is correlated, it can sometimes increase the volatility. Thats what the data would suggest. Wondering, does the fed thek theres risks to broader Financial System associated with complex etfs . Is the fed concerned about that . Any ideas . Chairman powell its an interesting question. I saw that article. We looked after the volatility came and subsided, we look carefully to try to understand really what did happen. It seems the markets were generally orderly through all of that time. Ofs are a particular form fund. I dont think they were particularly at the heart of what went on on those days. We are talking to fellow agencies, particularly the sec. It is a question we are looking into. Thank you. On a completely different topic, you talked about the historically low Unemployment Rate among people of color. That theu acknowledged rate of unemployment for people of color is much higher than for white workers. Given the fact that the Participation Rate has been fairly constant, does the fed have any suggestions to the ifmp administration about the wind is at our backs now, how do we close that gap . How do we get more people of color into the workforce so we close that gap . Chairman powell as i mentioned, are part of it is to take seriously our obligation to reach maximum employment. We dont have tools that are good at addressing these kinds of disparities. Im asking you to suggest recommendations to the white house. They have the power to do it. Chairman powell i wouldnt want to presume to recommend policies that are away from our general mandate. I will say generally that lets say we are trying to reduce unemployment. Chairman powell the constructive thing for this area is to focus on education and training. We want everyone to have opportunity. We want this to be a society where everyone has opportunity to succeed. Part of that is reaching people through the educational system. I would point you in that direction. Very good. Thank you, mr. Chairman. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from illinois. Good to see you. Thank you for your work. 2017, you testified before the Senate Banking committee and you said we believe the leverage ratio is an important backstop to the risk framework, but its important to get the relative calibrations right. Doing so is critical to mitigating any perverse changes along these lines could address concerns of custody banks that their Business Model is disproportionately affected by the leverage ratio. Ive worked with my colleagues on this committee on legislation that was passed out of the committee 600 that would provide relief from the supplementary leverage ratio for institutions corporate utley in the business of providing custody services. The june 2017 report recommends changes to the supplementary leverage ratio for cash on deposit with Central Banks in line with legislation reported by the committee. Do you support the Treasury Departments recommendation . How would you work with the occ and fdic to make those changes . Chairman powell i agree with you, sir, that leverage ratio can deter banks from engaging in low risk wholesale activities, particularly the custody banks. Weve looked carefully at how to provide relief. Our preference for the way to do that is to recalibrate the ratio andupplemental the custody banks would feel significant relief because they have the smallest surcharges. That is our preferred way to do that. Following up on that, as you know, with these considered changes to the ratio, they only cover the do you believe changes to the possible ratios are necessary . Chairman powell the regular supplemental leverage ratio based on my conversations with other institutions, including custody banks, is not particularly binding for them. We chose to make this enhancement. We got the calibration a little bit wrong. Our plan is to roll that back. Cbo recently provided a cost estimate for the implementation of hr 2121. The cbo often relies upon the executive branch for such estimates. Would you share this correspondence with my staff and the committee for the determination of cost for implementation of 2121 . Chairman powell i would be willing to work with you. Great. s my concern for this is that the banking regulators are only looking at providing relief to the gzips. The less large banks are subject to slr. Northern trust is important in chicago. Theyve beens around, but they are not ag said a gzip. They are still subject to binding capital restraints. To my questionar regarding adjustment to basal leverage ratios, the treatment of centrally cleared options, october 2017 report notes the current exposure method model requires options contracts to be sized in their notional face value rather than allowing for a risk adjustment the notional to reflect the actual exposure, specifically cme does not prevent delta adjustment for the notional value measurements of options. It also notes the cme may be responsible for the banks willingness to provide access i understand this concern was realized by some Market Makers during the volatility incurred in recent months. I wonder if you agree with the treasury reports recommendations. To better reflect the exposure such as potentially waiting options by their delta. Chairman powell i believe there is an alternative, more risk sensitive approach we are moving to in that area. I want to check back with our experts. It would be great if you could let us know that. I appreciate your willingness to work with us. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from georgia. Thank you very much, mr. Chairman. Welcome, chairman powell. Me and whaturbing is remarkable i think downright disturbing, to me, are the policies coming out of this Trump Administration in three specific areas that you as the haverman of the fed ou direct input on. There are three areas in particular first, the tax cuts. 83 of there that president s tax cuts go to 1 of the American Families . That is not fair at all. Youe go to his budget cuts, know who was impacted the most because of this budget cut . Its the africanamerican community. Draconian,o his for coney terrible proposals to cut 17. 2 billion away from food stamp recipients. And then, if thats not mean and ugly enough, they want to turn food stamp stop recipients from even being able to go into the Grocery Store and buy groceries just like you and i. This is mean, man. You seem like a very reasonable person. Of theoing to 1 wealthiest people . At the same token, they want to in boxes, canned food, dried milk, powdered milk to the poor people in this country. Mr. Chairman, youve got the dual mission of inflation, unemployment, on top of that, they are crushing the most primary group that is being africanamericans and people of color and im here to tell you, we are going to stand up and fight this administration. I want to ask you to get on our side, the side of the american people. Its clear to me that this President Trump is not on the side of the american people. Giving 83 of the benefits of the tax cuts to the 1 of the wealthiest and then turn around cutting 17. 2 billion out of the thing we need the most, food for the poorest people. Then, on top of that, shipping their food in boxes to sit on their porch. Dried milk for their babies. You tell me, mr. Chairman, is this the way you think about america . Chairman powell i can only say these are very important issues. I take them to heart. These are not issues that we have authority over. I was waiting on you to say that, mr. Chairman. Theres nobody better suited. You are the chairman of the Federal Reserve. Sneeze,now when you wall street crumbles . Thats why im pointing this to you, mr. Powell. I looked at your background. You are well prepared for this. , you have arienced deep compassion for people. To im asking you to do is every once in a while say, hold on, mr. President , this isnt right to be shipping the food to the poorest people in this country and denying them the right to go into the Grocery Store to buy food. Gentleman has the expired. The chair will recognize the gentleman from pennsylvania. Welcome, chairman. The fed supervises several Insurance Companies that own thrifts. Congress has taken a strong interest in ensuring fed supervision reflects the business of insurance and the privacy of state regulation of insurance. Most notably, Congress Passed legislation in 2014 country that capital rules for Insurance Companies are tailored to the business of insurance. We appreciate all your work on this rule. Separate from the pending moreal rule, i believe could be done to ensure that on the ground supervision of Insurance Companies is proportional to the risk of these companies pose in terms of safety and soundness and reflect the existing system of state supervision. What are you doing to ensure that theres more the Federal Reserve could do here . Chairman powell we do from to beginning, we try hard look at insurance as a new area for us where we need to develop expertise. It needs to reflect the risks of the insurance business. We really invest in that. We continue to do that in developing our capital requirement. We tried to reflect that. We are very open to the views of experienced insurance regulators, some of whom we fired, and people weve hired, and people in the industry. There are four vacancies on the board of governors. How do these vacancies affect the feds ability to the fillets mission . Best fulfill its mission ability to fulfill its mission . Chairman powell im eager to have more colleagues. I wore an awful lot of hats. I hand them out to my two colleagues. We are quite eager to have more people on board. We dont need all seven immediately, but we which are left to get there we would sure love to get their. We would sure love to get there. The importance of bringing individuals with a variety of experiences to the table when discussing monetary and wriggled free policy. He describes the culture as academic dominated. I can see how a nonacademic practitioner perspective can be helpful. Can diversity of experiences help support a more reliable Monetary Policy . Chairman powell i strongly believe that. We need great economists around the table and we need lots of them. We also need people from other backgrounds. Other experience from business and managing profit and Nonprofit Institutions and from Financial Markets and from the law. Those people bring diverse perspectives and they make our decisions better and discussions better. Our National Debt exceeds 20 trillion and continues to grow rapidly. At the same time, the fed has been engaged in an unprecedented monetary politics. Fed has stepped beyond what is necessary for the conduct of Monetary Policy and ventured into credit policy. Do you worried that unsustainable public debt may increase political pressures on the fed . Risk,an powell its a not a nearterm risk. We are now in the process of normalizing our Balance Sheet and tricking it shrinking it. We are moving back to a more normal level Balance Sheet. We will be there in 35 years. One thing that always puzzled me is this target 2 inflation rate. Over 20 years if you had 100 bucks 20 years ago, the purchasing power went down. Can you educate us about this 2 target . 100 20 years ago at 2 , it might cost 150 today. Chairman powell this was a big debate which was settled around 2 as opposed to zero for Central Banks to aim at. It has become a global standard all around the wrote. Banks are aiming for 2 . It gives us more room to cut real Interest Rates. If the Interest Rate if inflation is zero, Interest Rates would be in the 13 range. When a recession comes, we would have little to cut. Having 2 inflation oils the wheels of the economy and give Central Banks more ammunition. It has become the global standard. It would be hard for any bank to diverge from it. The gentleman yields back. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from texas. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Theuld like to thank persons who are here who call themselves full employment defenders. Welcome. Mr. Chairman, what do you consider full employment . I have the number 5. 5 . If you differ, i would like to hear your number, please. Chairman powell i would say fours. Mewhere in the low it could be 5 or 3. 5 . When is the last time that africanamerican unemployment 3. 5s . The low fours or chairman powell i dont think it ever has been since weve started measuring it. It hasnt been ever since slavery. 6. 8 seems to be the lowest number i could find since weve been keeping numbers. 47 of the last 54 years, its always been twice that of white unemployment. You agree . Do you agree that black unemployment is generally speaking twice that of white unemployment . Chairman powell that is what the numbers support. Do you agree . Chairman powell i agree it is a true statement. This you agree that termination still exists in the United States of america . Chairman powell i would. Do you agree that when weve had an opportunity to test banks, weve found that this termination exists with lending . Chairman powell yes. Do you agree that testing is an effective means by which we can acquire empirical evidence to show that this termination exists. Chairman powell i do believe it is used in that way. Yes. Mr. Chairman, would you support legislation to help us acquire the empirical evidence to show that this exists so that we can do something about it . We know the facts. What are we going to do about it . Your charge is the promotion of full employment. I take that to mean full employment not just for white people, but for everyone. At some point, black unemployment has to be addressed because it is chronically twice that of white people. We have to use terms like black people and white people to make the point. We have to ask that our friends on the other side join black people in doing something about this. Wet which we will tolerate will not change. We have learned to tolerate africanamerican unemployment being twice that of white unemployment. I refuse to tolerate it. Thats why i use language that is clear and concise. Theres no question about what i say. The question is, what are we going to do about it . We know discrimination exists in banking in terms of lending. We know it exists in other areas of the economy. What are we going to do about it . Im not assigning all of the responsibility to you. Thats why i mention my friends on the other side and my friends on this side. Im a liberated democrat. Democrats and republicans have to do more about black unemployment. Unfortunately, when a black person challenges the system, such as i do, it becomes playing the race card. Let me say today that im playing the race card. We have for too long allowed this condition to exist. Im going to send you a letter. Explainequest that you overtle that covert and thisloyme this commission placn unemployment. I will ask you to identify the primary factors that limit africanamerican access i will ask you if allowed with testin with testing provide empl data that would testing provide empirical data. I respect you and i ask that you be of service to all americans, not just white americans. The chair now recognizes the gentleman from colorado. Thank you, mr. Chairman. Chairman powell, i appreciate you taking the time to be here. One of the big challenges weve faced in this country is the policies of the Previous Administration that deal with lethargic growth that impacted communities across the country. We are seeing policies that are getting the economy moving in creating Job Opportunities and putting resources back into the pockets of the individuals who and giving people opportunity to increase their prospects for their families and communities. I want to make sure they are applied across the board in this country, to each community. I want to highlight the benefits ive seen in my district from the tax cut and jobs act in