Atlanta Fed President Raphael Bostic said in an interview Sunday that the Fed’s main focus now is on jobs, and disputed the assumption that the Fed just does what Wall Street wants.
“ “I don’t do what Wall Street wants. I do what’s best for the economy. If Wall Street has an investment in the economy and the economy grows and they do better, so be it.” ”
In an interview that aired on “Axios on HBO,” Bostic said the Fed is trying to create a “bridge” to get every business and family in America to the other side of the pandemic “with as little damage as possible.”
To those ends, he said his top priority is to “get as many people a job as possible.”
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“If you don’t have a job, there’s no way you’re going to get to assets. I want our institutions and our policies to work in a way that many more people get jobs than have historically because then they can actually start to build those assets,” Bostic said.
“For us to succeed in the jobs side, there’s also going to be success on the wealth side. You can’t get one without the other.”