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The Hornstein-Kudlyak-Lange Non-Employment Index (NEI) was 8.4 percent in July 2021, declining from June 2021. The index was 3.6 percentage points lower compared to July 2020. The NEI including workers who are part time for economic reasons (PTER) was 9.3 percent in July 2021, declining from the previous month. That index was 4.2 percentage points lower compared to the same month in 2020.

CDFIs play a central role in ongoing work towards an equitable economic recovery as they help consumers, small businesses, and communities access funding. From March 22 through May 14, 2021, the Federal Reserve fielded the 2021 CDFI Survey. The effort gathered information from 345 CDFIs on their financial well-being throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, operational gaps and challenges, and effects on their clients and the communities they serve.

Key Findings:

Businesses with no employees other than the owner often turned to personal funds in response to financial challenges during the pandemic. These nonemployers were less likely than employer firms to seek pandemic-related emergency funding and less likely to be approved.

On April 29, Newark, N.J.-based AeroFarms broke ground on a new farm in Danville, Va. When it opens for business next year, it will be the largest farm of its kind in the world. Yet compared to the typical commercial farm, it will occupy a tiny amount of land — just over 3 acres. Rather than planting in sprawling outdoor fields, AeroFarms will grow its crops indoors.

AeroFarms' new facility is one of many vertical farms being built in the United States and around the world. Vertical farming is a form of controlled environment agriculture (CEA), which uses a range of technologies and techniques to optimize plant growth and minimize the risks and variability found in outdoor growing. And, as the name suggests, vertical farms grow up rather than out. Racks of plants can be stacked on top of each other, allowing the farm to economize on space. That is particularly valuable for farmers looking to grow food in places where land is scarce, such as cities.

Proponents of...

We identify shocks to household consumption using cross-sectoral information. We find that those shocks have accounted for close to 40 percent of pre-pandemic business cycle fluctuations in the U.S. Such shocks have the characteristics of demand shocks: They increase (or decrease) output, inflation and interest rates. The results imply that one might be able to significantly stabilize business cycles by stabilizing consumption fluctuations.

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Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta President Raphael Bostic said the central bank should move to taper its asset purchases after another strong month or two of employment gains, and proceed with that scaling-back process faster than in past episodes.

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A woman working in tech who is a role model and has gone out of her way to support the cause of getting more women in IT in the last 18 months. As well as examining the women in IT initiatives the candidates have pioneered to inspire women to succeed in technology, judges will also assess their leadership and the initiative’s impact on, and integration with, the business.

Aaratee Rao, Microsoft

Adrienne Shulman, Cornerstone

Ashley Scott, Albert Einstein College of Medicine

Deborah Waters, Citi

Elise Kohl-Grant, IMSNY

Katie Toole, BNY Mellon

Kitty Chaney Reed, IBM

Mary N. Chaney, Minorities in Cybersecurity Inc.

Michelle Knedler, Pearson Education??

Swathi Young, Integrity Management Services Inc.

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Research staff regularly monitors the national economy, helping the Richmond Fed grasp current conditions and their implications for monetary policy. Updated weekly, the following data is part of the information presented during policy discussions and meetings with our board of directors.

When she was a college student in Turkey in the 1990s, Ay?egül ?ahin (pronounced "ay-she-gul sha-heen") aspired to be an electrical engineer. But while she was working on her doctorate in electrical and electronics engineering, she sampled an economics course as an elective and found it enthralling. She tried two more economics courses and liked them. Although she had finished all of her Ph.D. coursework by this point, she decided to switch fields. She ultimately won admission to an economics doctoral program in America at the University of Rochester.

"I didn't really know what I was getting into," ?ahin says. "But I didn't regret it for a second afterward."

She quickly gravitated toward studying labor markets. "I found it fascinating that the most important market for most people is the labor market," she says. "Not all of us own stock, but we all own human capital."

Today, after a 14-year tenure as a labor market economist in the New York Fed's research...