Yellen on Poor Views of Economy: People ‘Seem to Feel Good About Their Own Personal Finances’

During an interview with Bloomberg on Thursday, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen reacted to negative sentiment on the direction of the American economy by stating that people “have been through a lot with the pandemic and the lockdown for almost two years, then a period of high inflation” and there are structural issues that have existed for a while, but people “do seem to feel good about their own personal finances.”

Yellen said, “I think Americans have been through a lot with the pandemic and the lockdown for almost two years, then a period of high inflation. And, as you say, they do seem to feel good about their own personal finances. Surveys of job satisfaction suggest people feel good about their work, too. We’ve rarely seen higher numbers on job satisfaction. But they seem very worried about the economy and that things are not doing well. The U.S. economy has suffered from structural problems…for a very long time. A significant share of the population, particularly those who haven’t had a college education, have really not seen meaningful growth in their real income and have seen a decline in job opportunities over, really, approaching 50 years. And I think what Americans need to know is that the Biden-Harris administration is really decisively changing that.”

She continued, “We are investing in America. We have passed three — a trifecta of legislation that people will increasingly see who have been suffering from a shortage of job opportunities, I think they’re really going to see things change. First of all, we’re spending an enormous amount to repair America’s infrastructure. And increasingly, people are going to see their roads that they get hung up on every day, it’s hard to commute, potholes everywhere, it’s going to be fixed. Bridges are going to be improved, airports. People are going to — within the next several years, virtually every American will have access to good Internet, so improving digital economy. And we have seen an enormous set of investments announced in response largely to the chips and semiconductors act and to the Inflation Reduction Act in clean energy. And jobs are being created. What we see in this past year is that a disproportionate share of the jobs that are being created are in communities that have had less economic opportunity. … I think we’re beginning to see the fruits of these investments beginning to pay off. So, I think Americans have a lot to look forward to and are beginning to see this in their daily lives.”

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