Bloomberg
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell took questions from high school teachers at the central bank event on Wednesday night.
Fed Chairman Jerome Powell said Wednesday his goal is for the central bank to earn the public’s trust.
In a Washington town hall for teachers, Powell said he wanted the public to know the central bank was working in a “non-political way” to support the economy.
“That’s really the essence of our job,” he said.
“Surveys show that all over the world people are losing faith in large institutions, so we’re paddling against the current in trying to sustain public faith in the Fed,” Powell said.
The central bank must be accessible to ordinary Americans and lawmakers, he said.
Powell said he does a “great deal of outreach to Congress,” in order to be accountable to elected officials, and noted he would be meeting lawmakers for three straight days this week.
Powell noted he also meets with White House officials.
The Fed chairman is facing some criticism for his dinner on Monday with President Donald Trump. Some said it gave the appearance of White House influence over policy as it came soon after the central bank unexpectedly shifted sharply to a more dovish policy stance.
Read: Powell’s dinner with Trump fuels unease about Fed independence
There was not much talk about interest-rate policy in the town hall. At one point, Powell said the economy was in “a good place.” He said inflation discussions at the Fed involved a “surprisingly deep and tricky set of questions.”
The Fed chairman said the central bank wanted prosperity to be “widely shared” and said education and mobility were key factors.
Powell gave some glimpses into his private life. He said as a teenager he became interested in public service after his father had to turn down a government job because the salary wouldn’t be enough to cover the tuition and college costs for his six children.
The Fed chairman said he learned Basic and Fortran computer languages in school in the 1960s but never followed up on computer programing.
Powell also said he likes to play the guitar to unwind. “I’m really hoping to get a Fed band going,” he said.
But Powell said any Fed chairman shouldn’t expect too many days off.
He said his predecessors, Janet Yellen and Ben Bernanke, only managed to “get away for just a few days” during their tenures.
“That’s fine,” he said.
