Obama to Confer With Fed Chair Yellen on State of Economy

President Barack Obama will meet Nov. 3 with Janet Yellen, chair of the Federal Reserve Board, to discuss the economy a day before the U.S. midterm elections.

The meeting at the White House will be Obama’s first one-on-one session with Yellen since her Senate confirmation on Jan. 6. The focus will be the long-term outlook for the American economy and the global recovery, according to the White House.

The government this week said the economy expanded at a 3.5 percent annualized rate in the three months ended in September, after a 4.6 percent gain in the second quarter. That’s the best back-to-back showing for U.S. gross domestic product since the last six months of 2003.

Obama held private meetings with former Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke, Yellen’s predecessor, and “this meeting is a continuation of that important dialog on the state of the economy, financial reform, and other economic issues,” the White House said in an e-mailed statement.

Two days ago, Yellen and her colleagues on the Federal Open Market Committee ended an asset-purchase program that added $1.66 trillion to the central bank’s balance sheet. The panel cited “solid job gains” while maintaining a pledge to keep interest rates low for a “considerable time” as inflation stays under its 2 percent target.

Yellen is completing two years of bond purchases that started under Bernanke, as the Fed nears its goal for full employment. She must now chart a course toward the first rate increase since 2006 while confronting risks from a slowing global economy and declining inflation.

Yellen met with Obama on Oct. 6 but did so as part of a group of independent financial regulators taking stock of regulations affecting consumers and Wall Street.