Ben Bernanke Employment Quotations

This step would in no way reduce the importance of maximum employment as a policy goal, ... In any case, I assure this committee that if I am confirmed, I will take no precipitate steps in the direction of quantifying the definition of long-run price stability. This matter requires further study at the Federal Reserve as well as extensive discussion and consultation.

If I am confirmed, I am confident that my colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee and I will maintain the focus on long-term price stability as monetary policy's greatest contribution to general economic prosperity and maximum employment.

Achieving price stability is not only important in itself, it is also central to attaining the Federal Reserve's other mandate objectives of maximum sustainable employment and moderate long-term interest rates.

Our mission, as set forth by the Congress is a critical one: to preserve price stability, to foster maximum sustainable growth in output and employment, and to promote a stable and efficient financial system that serves all Americans well and fairly.

We’ve never had a decline in house prices on a nationwide basis. So, what I think what is more likely is that house prices will slow, maybe stabilize, might slow consumption spending a bit. I don’t think it’s going to drive the economy too far from its full employment path, though.

Middle-income living standards, and poverty for that matter, are best addressed through employment growth. By maintaining low inflation and low expectations of inflation, you can create new employment.

Under constrained discretion, the central bank is free to do its best to stabilize output and employment in the face of short-run disturbances, with the appropriate caution born of our imperfect knowledge of the economy and of the effects of policy (this is the 'discretion' part of constrained discretion),

Indeed, I would argue that, in situations of considerable slack, growth that is generated solely by increased productivity, and that is unaccompanied by substantial employment growth, may possibly require monetary ease, rather than monetary tightening, in the short run.