More comments from Powell

  • current levels of wage growth are not high enough to put upward pressure on inflation
  • Fed has no evidence for calling this a hot labor market
  • Hot labor market is not a current issue
  • Passing US trade deal with Mexico and Canada would be positive and remove uncertainty
  • Facebook's Libra project cannot move forward unless concerns are addressed
  • Facebooks Libra needs a careful look
  • proposed USMCA trade deal is similar to prior deal
  • there is no economic consensus on cost-benefit trade-off of minimum wage laws
  • an extraordinary number of people are taking opioids and it weighs on workforce participation
  • job gains just starting to reach people at margins of the labor force
  • employers hiring those who would been outside labor force
  • all sorts of communities being dragged into the labor force