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.

The Federal Reserve has a congressional mandate to promote maximum employment. What is maximum employment? How does the Fed pursue it? And how do we know when the goal is achieved?

Join Terry Fitzgerald, vice president and assistant director of economic analysis at the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, to learn more about the Federal Reserve’s mandated goal of maximum employment and how the Fed promotes it. This “Conversations with the Fed” event will be held virtually on Thursday, Aug. 19, at 1:00 p.m. CT.

The Minneapolis Fed is at the Minnesota State Fair

Before you visit the cows, pigs, and horses; eat any food on a stick; or hop on a dizzying ride, swing by our booth in the Education building.

Amy Kytonen started as a college intern at the Minneapolis Fed in 1992.

Now, as a vice president in the Supervision, Regulation, and Credit (SRC) department, she manages a program that has been key to the nation’s economic stability through the coronavirus pandemic.

Over the past year and a half, Amy has overseen the Paycheck Protection Program Liquidity Facility, or PPPLF, which was created following the CARES Act of 2020. Through the PPPLF, the Federal Reserve loans money to lenders of the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP). In turn, the PPPLF enables PPP lenders to increase their lending capacity to small businesses.

This role is a stretch from what Amy imagined for herself as child. Growing up in North Minneapolis to parents with immigrant roots—her mother is Mexican and her father’s family immigrated from Hungary—Amy says there were several aid programs for which her family qualified.

“I was the beneficiary of free breakfast and lunch at...

July 13, 2021 12:00 p.m. – 3:00 p.m. ET | 11:00 a.m. – 2:00 p.m. CT Virtual video event presented by all 12 District Banks of the Federal Reserve System

The pandemic recession put enormous stress on the federal-state unemployment insurance (UI) system. A one-month increase in the unemployment rate from 4.4 percent to 14.8 percent, combined with legislation that dramatically expanded the reach of the UI system, sent caseloads to levels never seen before. As tens of millions of workers were submitting applications, policymakers directed UI agencies to fundamentally alter the way the system worked, setting up new programs and making a host of changes to typical operations.

From one perspective, the UI system met this unprecedented challenge. The federal government reports that states made more than $1 trillion in UI payments in the second quarter of 2020, in contrast to less than $50 billion in the prior quarter (both at annualized rates). This spending, combined with direct payments to households, caused personal income to rise instead of fall in the second quarter of 2020, even as workers lost their jobs. The UI...

This feature illustrates the unique imprint that COVID has had on different sectors of the economy. The tools below use sectoral data on employment (BLS) and output (BEA) so the user can compare varying impact across sectors during different recessions.

Our Regional Outreach team surveyed businesses across the Ninth District to gauge recent economic activity and the near-term outlook of firms in different sectors. Join Ron Wirtz, Regional Outreach director, for a live webinar discussing the results from a late July survey of firms and to learn how businesses are faring during the recovery.

The COVID-19 pandemic inflicted enormous human and economic costs on the Ninth District, nation, and world. The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis is charged with closely monitoring economic conditions in our region so that local and national policymakers can make informed policy choices.

Given rapidly changing conditions, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis continues to monitor a variety of daily and weekly data sources to more accurately assess economic developments in real time, some of which are displayed below. Please check back for frequent updates and new indicators.

This feature illustrates the unique imprint that COVID has had on different sectors of the economy. The tools below use sectoral data on employment (BLS) and output (BEA) so the user can compare varying impact across sectors during different recessions.

The pandemic recession put enormous stress on the federal-state unemployment insurance (UI) system. A one-month increase in the unemployment rate from 4.4 percent to 14.8 percent, combined with legislation that dramatically expanded the reach of the UI system, sent caseloads to levels never seen before. As tens of millions of workers were submitting applications, policymakers directed UI agencies to fundamentally alter the way the system worked, setting up new programs and making a host of changes to typical operations.

From one perspective, the UI system met this unprecedented challenge. The federal government reports that states made more than $1 trillion in UI payments in the second quarter of 2020, in contrast to less than $50 billion in the prior quarter (both at annualized rates). This spending, combined with direct payments to households, caused personal income to rise instead of fall in the second quarter of 2020, even as workers lost their jobs. The UI...

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.

The Minneapolis Fed is at the Minnesota State Fair

Before you visit the cows, pigs, and horses; eat any food on a stick; or hop on a dizzying ride, swing by our booth in the Education building.

The COVID-19 pandemic inflicted enormous human and economic costs on the Ninth District, nation, and world. The Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis is charged with closely monitoring economic conditions in our region so that local and national policymakers can make informed policy choices.

Given rapidly changing conditions, the Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis continues to monitor a variety of daily and weekly data sources to more accurately assess economic developments in real time, some of which are displayed below. Please check back for frequent updates and new indicators.