QuoteProject
Policy makers should be compelled to take action given the serious costs of long-term unemployment when overall unemployment is already high. A week of unemployment is worse when it is experienced as part of a longer spell.
Janet Yellen
ShareWTF𝕏

Interpretation

What this quote means

Long-term unemployment exacerbates suffering during periods of high overall unemployment.

Janet Yellen's quote highlights the urgency for policy makers to address the dire consequences of prolonged unemployment, especially when the general unemployment rate is already elevated. Long-term unemployment doesn’t just diminish a person's financial stability; it also harms their mental and emotional well-being, creating a cycle of disadvantage that is difficult to break.

Themes

UnemploymentPolicyEconomicsActionCosts

In practice

Example use cases

Use this quote during a discussion on economic policy reforms.

More from Janet Yellen

Although we work through financial markets, our goal is to help Main Street, not Wall Street.
Janet YellenRead
We need to keep in mind the well-established fact that the full effects of monetary policy are felt only after long lags. This means that policy makers cannot wait until they have achieved their objectives to begin adjusting policy.
Janet YellenRead
A clear lesson of history is that a 'sine qua non' for sustained economic recovery following a financial crisis is a thoroughgoing repair of the financial system.
Janet YellenRead
Transparency concerning the Federal Reserve's conduct of monetary policy is desirable because better public understanding enhances the effectiveness of policy. More important, however, is that transparent communications reflect the Federal Reserve's commitment to accountability within our democratic system of government.
Janet YellenRead
For decades, the pace of technological change in manufacturing has outstripped that in the economy as a whole. And, so, firms - manufacturing firms - have found it easier to continue producing by - with - reducing their workforces.
Janet YellenRead
Inequality has risen to the point that it seems to me worthwhile for the U.S. to seriously consider taking the risk of making our economy more rewarding for more of the people.
Janet YellenRead

Similar quotes

One of the evils of paper money is that it turns the whole country into stock jobbers. The precariousness of its value and the uncertainty of its fate continually operate, night and day, to produce this destructive effect. Having no real value in itself it depends for support upon accident, caprice, and party; and as it is the interest of some to depreciate and of others to raise its value, there is a continual invention going on that destroys the morals of the country.
Thomas PaineRead
What drags down our entire economy is when there's an ever-widening chasm between the ultra-rich and everybody else.
Barack ObamaRead
Economics is haunted by more fallacies than any other study known to man. This is no accident. The inherent difficulties of the subject would be great enough in any case, but they are multiplied a thousandfold by a factor that is insignificant in, say, physics, mathematics or medicine - the special pleading of selfish interests.
Henry HazlittRead
That's the problem with very high taxes - they don't redistribute wealth; they redistribute people.
Daniel HannanRead
Good economic theory must give the people the chance to use their talents to build their own lives. We must get away from the traditional route where the rich will do the business and the poor will depend on private or public charity.
Muhammad YunusRead
I've never been on Wall Street. And I care about Wall Street for one reason and one reason only because what happens on Wall Street matters to Main Street.
Ben BernankeRead

A little wisdom, now and then

Subscribe for the occasional hand-picked quote. No noise.