With the national unemployment rate frozen at 9.1 percent and 14 million Americans out of work, President Obama and Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke next week will outline their plans to stir up the economy. A week after speaking at an economic conference in Wyoming, Bernanke will outline what tools the fed will use to breathe new life into the economy.
His speech takes place in Minneapolis and a lately volatile Wall Street will be all ears. Later that same day, President Obama will deliver his much anticipated plan to create jobs and grow the economy. The president will outline his plan before a joint session of Congress.
Bernanke last week put the jobless situation in perspective when he said at the Wyoming conference it would take a full year of five percent ecomomic growth to budge the unemployment rate one percent. The Fed chairman also said the Central Bank can't fire up the economy by itself. Bernanke told the conference "Most of the economic policies that support robust economic growth in the long run are outside the province of the central bank."
Economists are expecting Bernanke to cut borrowing costs even further when he speaks next Thursday but Wall Street insiders are not sure if that will help the millions of people looking for a job. The Fed chairman said at the conference last week the central bank had a "full range of tools that could be used to provide additional monetary stimulus."
The twin speeches will come a day after the Republican presidential candidates take part in a debate at the Reagan Presidential Library in Simi Valley, California. The economy and particularly the massive budget deficit are expected to be among the hot topics at the debate. The GOP debate also takes place a day before the congressional supercommittee begins the task of finding ways to trim 1.5 trillion dollars from the deficit.
The bi-partisan panel is an outgrowth of the deficit reduction agreement achieved by President Obama and congressional Republicans last month.