Want to engage your kids during the summer? Join our #CLEFedSummerFun challenge with hands-on activities that we’ve created to teach important financial literacy concepts, while providing fun for the whole family!

To participate in this at-home, virtual fun, at the beginning of each challenge, download the activity sheet to get started. The activity sheet for each challenge will be posted on the start dates seen below.

Here is some bad news on top of even more bad news about how America’s renters are faring as the coronavirus crisis wares on.

In a new report released Friday, researchers at the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland find that, after falling steeply at the start of our national sorta-kinda-almost-a-full-fledged shutdown, the pace of eviction filings has risen back to normal in cities and counties where they haven’t been temporarily banned. The pattern suggests that while landlords might have been willing to work out deals with their tenants early on in quarantine, it’s back to business as usual in parts of the country where they’re allowed to kick people out for missing their rent. (The team analyzed data from 44 different locales across the country.)

America needs a bridge—a bridge that will get households, communities, and businesses over the unanticipated challenges created by the COVID-19 shutdown. In helping to build that bridge, the Federal Reserve, with authorization from Congress, has created and revived a number of rare lending programs, each providing targeted assistance to the needs of those impacted.

The challenge: Business for many companies has slowed or halted, driving up their need for loans. At the same time, funding such as loans is less available for small and medium-sized businesses.

The response: Through its Main Street Lending Program, the Federal Reserve will buy up to $600 billion in loans that lenders, such as banks and credit unions, make to small and midsize businesses. When lenders sell their loans to the Fed, they can use the money they receive to make more loans.

The details: Only loans made to businesses that were financially sound before the crisis are eligible to be sold...

Summer Scholar

Rebecca Cowin is a summer scholar in the Community Development Department. She is pursuing a BA in economics with a minor in Spanish at the University of Minnesota.

Read bio…

Senior Research Economist

Raphael Schoenle's research focuses on macro- and monetary economics, in particular on firms’ pricing behavior and the role of financial frictions in these processes. His research also spans behavioral economics and household finance, the economics of production networks, and international macroeconomics.

Read bio…

Senior Research Economist

Raphael Schoenle's research focuses on macro- and monetary economics, in particular on firms’ pricing behavior and the role of financial frictions in these processes. His research also spans behavioral economics and household finance, the economics of production networks, and international macroeconomics.

Read bio…

Senior Research Economist

Raphael Schoenle's research focuses on macro- and monetary economics, in particular on firms’ pricing behavior and the role of financial frictions in these processes. His research also spans behavioral economics and household finance, the economics of production networks, and international macroeconomics.

Read bio…

The Federal Reserve's community development function promotes the economic resilience and mobility of low- to moderate-income and underserved households and communities across the country. The spread of COVID-19 is having an impact on communities nationwide. To best respond to this crisis, information is needed about the scope and scale of the pandemic’s challenges. Throughout 2020, all 12 Reserve Banks and the Fed Board of Governors are surveying representatives of nonprofit organizations, financial institutions, government agencies, and other community organizations to understand the effects of COVID-19 on low- to moderate-income communities and the entities serving them. The results of each survey will be released as a downloadable report.

The Beige Book, released 8 times a year, contains reports of economic conditions across the United States by region. Reports are based on information gathered primarily through interviews with business people and are prepared by each of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks for their respective Districts.

America needs a bridge—a bridge that will get households, communities, and businesses over the unanticipated challenges created by the COVID-19 shutdown. In helping to build that bridge, the Federal Reserve, with authorization from Congress, has created and revived a number of rare lending programs, each providing targeted assistance to the needs of those impacted.

The challenge: Under normal economic conditions, larger businesses can raise funds by issuing corporate bonds. Investors buy the bonds, lending businesses the cash they need, and, over a period of time, the businesses pay back the investors plus interest. Given the current pandemic and resulting economic shutdowns, investors’ appetite for corporate bonds is down because they are unsure how businesses will perform and if the businesses will repay. That has caused the availability of credit to contract for corporations and other issuers of corporate bonds at the same time that companies have a heightened need...

America needs a bridge—a bridge that will get households, communities, and businesses over the unanticipated challenges created by the COVID-19 shutdown. In helping to build that bridge, the Federal Reserve, with authorization from Congress, has created and revived a number of rare lending programs, each providing targeted assistance to the needs of those impacted.

The challenge: Under normal economic conditions, larger businesses can raise funds by issuing corporate bonds. Investors buy the bonds, lending businesses the cash they need, and, over a period of time, the businesses pay back the investors plus interest. Given the current pandemic and resulting economic shutdowns, investors’ appetite for corporate bonds is down because they are unsure how businesses will perform and if the businesses will repay. That has caused the availability of credit to contract for corporations and other issuers of corporate bonds at the same time that companies have a heightened need...

The Federal Reserve's community development function promotes the economic resilience and mobility of low- to moderate-income and underserved households and communities across the country. The spread of COVID-19 is having an impact on communities nationwide. To best respond to this crisis, information is needed about the scope and scale of the pandemic’s challenges. Throughout 2020, all 12 Reserve Banks and the Fed Board of Governors are surveying representatives of nonprofit organizations, financial institutions, government agencies, and other community organizations to understand the effects of COVID-19 on low- to moderate-income communities and the entities serving them. The results of each survey will be released as a downloadable report.

Senior Research Economist

Raphael Schoenle's research focuses on macro- and monetary economics, in particular on firms’ pricing behavior and the role of financial frictions in these processes. His research also spans behavioral economics and household finance, the economics of production networks, and international macroeconomics.

Read bio…

Senior Research Economist

Raphael Schoenle's research focuses on macro- and monetary economics, in particular on firms’ pricing behavior and the role of financial frictions in these processes. His research also spans behavioral economics and household finance, the economics of production networks, and international macroeconomics.

Read bio…

The Beige Book, released 8 times a year, contains reports of economic conditions across the United States by region. Reports are based on information gathered primarily through interviews with business people and are prepared by each of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks for their respective Districts.

The Beige Book, released 8 times a year, contains reports of economic conditions across the United States by region. Reports are based on information gathered primarily through interviews with business people and are prepared by each of the 12 Federal Reserve Banks for their respective Districts.

America needs a bridge—a bridge that will get households, communities, and businesses over the unanticipated challenges created by the COVID-19 shutdown. In helping to build that bridge, the Federal Reserve, with authorization from Congress, has created and revived a number of rare lending programs, each providing targeted assistance to the needs of those impacted.

The challenge: Investors buy corporate bonds, which are essentially IOUs that companies issue when companies need money. While on the investors’ books, the bonds generate income as issuing companies pay interest and, after some period of time, the original amount financed. In the event an investor wants to sell off some of its bonds before they are paid off by the borrower, they typically can do so because many other investors are willing to buy corporate bonds. Current conditions have made investors less willing to buy such bonds, leaving those that want or need to sell the bonds without buyers. At the same...

Background: The Cleveland Fed has been maintaining a survey of consumers for their views on how they are responding to COVID-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus of late 2019, and how COVID-19 is likely to impact the economy. Description: We update the results from these surveys on a weekly basis.

Online lending through fintech firms, which provide alternatives to traditional lending, has substantially expanded the finance market. These firms are now a significant source of financing for small businesses and businesses denied credit from traditional lenders, resulting in a larger range of businesses able to obtain financing.

America needs a bridge—a bridge that will get households, communities, and businesses over the unanticipated challenges created by the COVID-19 shutdown. In helping to build that bridge, the Federal Reserve, with authorization from Congress, has created and revived a number of rare lending programs, each providing targeted assistance to the needs of those impacted.

The challenge: Investors buy corporate bonds, which are essentially IOUs that companies issue when companies need money. While on the investors’ books, the bonds generate income as issuing companies pay interest and, after some period of time, the original amount financed. In the event an investor wants to sell off some of its bonds before they are paid off by the borrower, they typically can do so because many other investors are willing to buy corporate bonds. Current conditions have made investors less willing to buy such bonds, leaving those that want or need to sell the bonds without buyers. At the same...

Description: We report estimates of the expected rate of inflation over the next 30 years along with the inflation risk premium, the real risk premium, and the real interest rate. How we get our estimates: Our estimates are calculated with a model that uses Treasury yields, inflation data, inflation swaps, and survey-based measures of inflation expectations. Download our spreadsheet to see all the inflation expectations model’s outputs.

Description: We calculate the median CPI and the 16 percent trimmed-mean CPI based on data released in the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ monthly CPI report. Median CPI is the one-month inflation rate of the component whose expenditure weight is in the 50th percentile of price changes. 16 percent trimmed-mean CPI is a weighted average of one-month inflation rates of components whose expenditure weights fall below the 92nd percentile and above the 8th percentile of price changes. Benefits: By omitting outliers (small and large price changes) and focusing on the interior of the distribution of price changes, the median CPI and the 16 percent trimmed-mean CPI can provide a better signal of the underlying inflation trend than either the all-items CPI or the CPI excluding food and energy (also known as core CPI).

America needs a bridge—a bridge that will get households, communities, and businesses over the unanticipated challenges created by the COVID-19 shutdown. In helping to build that bridge, the Federal Reserve, with authorization from Congress, has created and revived a number of rare lending programs, each providing targeted assistance to the needs of those impacted.

The challenge: Investors buy corporate bonds, which are essentially IOUs that companies issue when companies need money. While on the investors’ books, the bonds generate income as issuing companies pay interest and, after some period of time, the original amount financed. In the event an investor wants to sell off some of its bonds before they are paid off by the borrower, they typically can do so because many other investors are willing to buy corporate bonds. Current conditions have made investors less willing to buy such bonds, leaving those that want or need to sell the bonds without buyers. At the same...

Online lending through fintech firms, which provide alternatives to traditional lending, has substantially expanded the finance market. These firms are now a significant source of financing for small businesses and businesses denied credit from traditional lenders, resulting in a larger range of businesses able to obtain financing.