Yellen, Powell Testify to Congress on Economic Recovery
Summary from the AllSides News Team
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell testified before the House and Senate this week, driving top headlines in business-focused outlets.
While inflation was still connected to factors like supply chain disruptions, Powell said, he no longer believed it was entirely “transitory,” opening the door to faster tapering of the Fed’s economic stimulus. Several outlets partially attributed Powell’s remarks to a drop in stock indexes on Tuesday, following several days of market volatility. Yellen said that pandemic-era stimulus and President Joe Biden’s Build Back Better bill addressed the “very substantial risk” of prolonged economic downturn while being “at most a small contributor” to inflation. Yellen again stressed the danger of not raising or suspending the debt ceiling before the extended Dec. 15 deadline; as of Wednesday, Congress had not yet struck a deal on the issue, but Senate leaders said legislation would come “soon.”
Coverage appeared to only be prominently displayed in business-focused outlets on Wednesday, with most other outlets focused on the Supreme Court’s abortion case. Coverage from the right tended to focus more on Powell’s comments, with some commentators saying he “got it wrong” or “helped cause the inflation he now admits is not merely ‘transitory.’”
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