Kansas City Fed President Esther George said it's time for the central bank to start dialing back its policy stimulus."I would be ready to talk about taper sooner rather than later," she said in a CNBC interview.

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The labor force participation of prime-age individuals (age 25 to 54) in the United States declined dramatically at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and as of June 2021, the prime-age labor force participation rate remains well below its pre-pandemic level. Prime-age individuals are in their most productive working years, and a persistent decline in their labor force participation has important implications for the future of the labor market and economic growth. However, understanding the decline requires detailed analysis, as aggregate statistics on labor force participation may mask differences in labor market outcomes.

Didem Tüzemen documents changes in the labor force participation rates of prime-age individuals across sex, education level, and race and ethnicity during the pandemic-induced downturn and subsequent recovery. Her analysis yields three key findings. First, prime-age women without a bachelor’s degree experienced greater...

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In response to the sharp economic downturn during the COVID-19 pandemic, Congress passed unprecedented policy relief measures to support households, businesses, and the broader economy. Compared with previous fiscal stimulus responses, these relief programs have been unmatched in size and scope, speed of response, and novelty of design.

Huixin Bi and Chaitri Gulati review recent empirical research on three fiscal relief programs—stimulus checks, augmented unemployment insurance (UI) benefits, and the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)—to understand their effects on the broader economy as well as their effectiveness. Bi and Gulati find that stimulus checks provided direct income support to liquidity-constrained and lower-income households, but because households who did not suffer income losses put the money into personal savings, the full boost to consumption has yet to be seen. Augmented UI benefits fully replaced earnings for the majority of...

Very few events in history have had as much an effect on human life and the economy as the COVID-19 pandemic. When the virus first emerged, public health authorities and government leaders enacted policies to curtail transmission and consumers reduced their activity in public spaces such as restaurants. Schools switched to online learning. Offices emptied as employers had many employees work from home. Travel halted abruptly, leading to hotel closures and cancelled flights. Restaurants shifted to take-out only or closed completely. Millions across the U.S. became unemployed in the largest mass layoff since the Great Depression. Disproportionate effects were felt especially in low-wage jobs, affecting many women and people of color.

As people lost jobs, the hit to their finances affected their ability to pay for housing. Low-income workers are more likely to be renters than to own a home. Thus, a widescale economic shutdown that disproportionately affected low-wage...

One of the feature exhibits at the Money Museum is the Truman Coin Collection on loan from the Harry S. Truman Presidential Library and Museum. This collection consists of 450 coins and was originally the personal collection of John Snyder, the Secretary of the Treasury during the Truman administration. This collection was completed and given to the Truman Presidential Library in Independence, Missouri for public display in March of 1962.

In November of 1962, the coin collection was stolen from its display at the Library and Museum. The original collection was never recovered, however, Snyder and John Stacks, a rare coin dealer in New York, reassembled a comparable collection from the donations of 167 coin collectors. This collection was presented to President Truman on May 6, 1967 by Stacks and Snyder and was placed on display once more.

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.

During the pandemic, the share of retirees in the U.S. population rose much faster than its normal pace. Typically, an increase in this share is driven by more people transitioning from employment to retirement. However, we show that the recent increase was instead driven by fewer people transitioning from retirement back into employment, likely due to pandemic-related health risks. More retirees may rejoin the workforce as these health risks fade, but the retirement share is unlikely to return to a normal level for some time.

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Alongside a sharp turnaround in agricultural economic conditions and lasting support from government programs related to pandemic relief, farm income and loan repayment rates both increased from a year ago??at the fastest pace on record. The improvement in farm finances eased credit issues and contributed to softer demand for farm loans. With support from a strong farm economy and historically low interest rates, farm real estate values rose 10% from a year ago, which was the largest increase since 2013.

The outlook for profit opportunities in 2021 remained strong for most agricultural producers as commodity prices remained well above recent years. Conditions in the cattle industry remained somewhat weaker, however, and drought continued to hinder conditions for farmers and ranchers in some areas of...

Despite extraordinary economic hardship presented by the COVID-19 pandemic, problem asset levels remain muted through March 2021, with the percentage of noncurrent loans and other real estate (ORE) owned representing less than one percent of total loans and ORE. For context, problem assets at community bank organizations (CBOs) peaked at over 5.5 percent in the last financial crisis.Consistent with many government-led efforts to provide respite, Section 4013 of the CARES Act granted banks temporary relief from troubled debt restructuring reporting. The volume of these loan modifications continues to fall for CBOs from an initial level of $198 billion in June 2020 to $56 billion, or 3.2 percent of total loans, in March 2021.While loan modifications_ provided necessary relief to borrowers adversely affected by the pandemic, the level of loans modified at the onset led to uncertainty around future increases in problem loans. These concerns have lessened as the economic outlook has...

While COVID-19 continues to cause disruptions in coin circulation, Americans can take simple steps to help alleviate the issue.

According to a statement from the U.S. Coin Task force, the economy isn’t experiencing a coin shortage — $48.5 billion in coins are in circulation. Much of it, however, is dormant inside American households. Returning just a fraction of that currency will greatly improve the circulation problem, making a meaningful difference for millions of Americans and businesses that rely on coins to support cash transactions, the statement said.

Banks and retailers can read the task force’s recommendations and guidance on the issue External Linkhere. The U.S. Coin Task force encourages the public to help improve coin circulation with the following steps:

As technology progresses, digital processes are becoming more prevalent in many aspects of everyday life, including the way purchases are made. From online shopping, to delivery services, contactless in-store payment and the ability to make person-to-person (P2P) payments via smartphones, the payments industry is rapidly moving toward digitalization.

While consumers have rapidly transitioned from paper to digital transactions, businesses have lagged behind. A staggering 75% of the 25 billion business-to-business (B2B) invoices exchanged annually in the United States still require manual processing. Manual processing of B2B payments is highly labor-intensive, prone to fraud and more costly than automated alternatives.

Recent progress towards the digitalization of B2B payments and the broader industry’s transition to real-time payments processing now present an exciting opportunity to modernize B2B payments with a standardized ecosystem for...

Very few events in history have had as much an effect on human life and the economy as the COVID-19 pandemic. When the virus first emerged, public health authorities and government leaders enacted policies to curtail transmission and consumers reduced their activity in public spaces such as restaurants. Schools switched to online learning. Offices emptied as employers had many employees work from home. Travel halted abruptly, leading to hotel closures and cancelled flights. Restaurants shifted to take-out only or closed completely. Millions across the U.S. became unemployed in the largest mass layoff since the Great Depression. Disproportionate effects were felt especially in low-wage jobs, affecting many women and people of color.

As people lost jobs, the hit to their finances affected their ability to pay for housing. Low-income workers are more likely to be renters than to own a home. Thus, a widescale economic shutdown that disproportionately affected low-wage...

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The labor force participation of prime-age individuals (age 25 to 54) in the United States declined dramatically at the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, and as of June 2021, the prime-age labor force participation rate remains well below its pre-pandemic level. Prime-age individuals are in their most productive working years, and a persistent decline in their labor force participation has important implications for the future of the labor market and economic growth. However, understanding the decline requires detailed analysis, as aggregate statistics on labor force participation may mask differences in labor market outcomes.

Didem Tüzemen documents changes in the labor force participation rates of prime-age individuals across sex, education level, and race and ethnicity during the pandemic-induced downturn and subsequent recovery. Her analysis yields three key findings. First, prime-age women without a bachelor’s degree experienced greater...

KANSAS CITY, MISSOURI – Due to the recently elevated COVID-19 health risk level in Teton County, Wyo., the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City will host its 2021 Economic Policy Symposium, “Macroeconomic Policy in an Uneven Economy,” virtually on Friday, Aug. 27.

“While we are disappointed that health conditions will prevent us from being able to gather in person at the Jackson Lake Lodge this year as we had planned, the safety of our guests and the Teton County community is our priority,” said Esther George, president and CEO of the Kansas City Fed.

Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell’s remarks will be livestreamed to the public at 9 a.m. CT/10 a.m. ET on Aug. 27 via the Kansas City Fed’s YouTube channel at External Linkwww.youtube.com/KansasCityFed. Invited attendees will participate in an online academic symposium following the speech.

The program’s full agenda will be available at External Linkwww.KansasCityFed.org at 7 p.m. CT/8 p.m. ET on...

Interest rates on some agricultural loans have increased slightly in recent quarters, according to the National Survey of Terms of Lending to Farmers. The average rate on non-real estate farm loans increased about 30 basis points from the all-time low at the end of 2020 while the average for real estate loans declined further (Chart 1). However, alongside steady benchmark rates, the average cost of financing on all farm loans remained more than 80 basis points less than the recent average and substantially lower than any previous period on record.