Tapping your card at the grocery store checkout might feel far removed from the giant table inside the U.S. Federal Reserve building in Washington D.C., where the central bank’s economists meet eight times a year to determine the future of monetary policy.
Yet how far the wages from your job stretch in that supermarket is of central concern to the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC). The price consumers are paying for basics—groceries, household essentials, or shelter—and job occupation rates are the core metrics the FOMC is charged with stabilizing.
The members of the FOMC have just one lever to pull when it comes to balancing these mandates: the base interest rate.
While it’s become increasingly clear that members of the public are concerned about inflation and job security, even the likes of JPMorgan’s Jamie Dimon have questioned how much Joe Public actually cares about whether the nation’s interest rate goes up or down.
Boston Fed President and FOMC member Susan Collins is keen for that to change. She wants to demystify the intricate workings of the committee and help people understand the economic landscape they live in.
“It’s important for people to understand the role of the FOMC or monetary policy at the Federal Reserve because of the importance of price stability and maximum employment for people’s everyday lives,” Collins told Fortune in an exclusive interview.
“It impacts individuals and their families and the communities that they live in. It impacts micro firms [and] individual entrepreneurs all the way up to our global multinational corporations. In order to have an environment that sustains rising living standards for our citizens, sustaining a low stable inflation and an environment with maximum employment really matters for all of us.
“That is what the FOMC is charged by Congress to do. That’s our job.”
A 24/7 job
The FOMC only gathers for two days, twice per quarter, but Collins says her role never stops.
She speaks with FOMC chairman Jerome Powell ahead of every meeting (a common habit of his is to temperature-check the mood of the committee even before gathering) as well as checking in with a few other FOMC peers.
Likewise Collins says she goes into each two-day session with a sense of whether she believes the base rate should be cut, held, or hiked.
She also keeps her data insights succinct—after all, there are nearly 20 people in the room to hear from.
The conference starts with presentations from Fed staff with analysis before the floor is opened for questions.
The tone of the meeting is set by Powell, Collins adds: “Chair Powell is very focused in the room as is appropriate. Once the meeting starts and he really sets the tone that we’re there to focus on our mandate, our mission, and to really hear the thoughts and comments that others have—no one is cut off.
“He sets a very positive, constructive and substantive tone, and everybody is heard.”
And while Collins says she has an idea of how she will vote before the meeting (and has a “reasonable sense” of what her peers are thinking) she’s still open to their influence.
“In the two and a half years that I’ve been in the role I would say that that influence is maybe less in the moment for the immediate decision and more things to focus on and to think about,” Collins explained. “People often use the analogy of a sports team. I played soccer in college and if you’re making a pass you want to make the pass to where your teammates are heading instead of where they are right now.
“You’ve got to be thinking about where things are going and so hearing some of that trajectory … certainly influences some of the work that I and my team are going to literally do as soon as we step out of the meeting.”
Where does the decision come from?
So what factors influence the decision which can steer the course for everything from the markets to mortgages?
Collins says she looks at “everything,” admitting that might be a frustrating response.
She her reasoning through the analogy of a jigsaw puzzle: “One of those huge 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles. You don’t have all the pieces, you know you don’t have all the pieces and you’re trying to figure out what the picture looks like. [And] you don’t have the box that tells you what the picture is.”
On the inflation side, for example, Collins and her team may unpack the personal consumption expenditures price index (PCE) as well as the Consumer Price Index (CPI) as the two use different metrics.
Likewise labor market data isn’t used in isolation of month-by-month or even week-by-week but is slotted into the much broader context of how employers and employees are behaving in the economy.
And whether Collins is looking more closely at employment or inflation data shifts depending on the stories each are telling, she adds: “At the moment I see the risks as being two-sided. There are risks to the inflation outlook because demand has been resilient, which is really good news.
“At the same time, if consumption were to grow faster than we anticipate, that could put pressure on prices and could interrupt that trajectory back down to 2%. So in particular I’m back focused again on inflation expectations and on some of the readings related to the strength of consumer demand.”
On the employment side, she added: “We have a healthy, strong labor market. We’re charged with maximum employment as well as price stability and we don’t need more labor market softening.
“Some of the things I’m looking at particularly [is] … are there signals that the labor market might be weakening more? And again, I think we’re in a good place. I’m not seeing red flags and I’m kind of watching all of it to balance the risks and to try to have the strongest assessment of the outlook that I can get.”
The interview with Collins was conducted outside of the Fed’s blackout period on November 18.
