Last month, nearly 13 million Americans were unemployed – that is, searching for a job but incapable of finding one, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
In addition, millions more were unwillingly bound to part-time work because they were unable to locate full-time jobs.
These numbers are actually moderate improvements compared to the bleak economic conditions that have become the norm in our nation. But one thing is certain: We need more impacting policies from the Fed to stimulate job growth and economic development.
The persistence of high unemployment and the pace at which jobs are becoming available is still outrageously unacceptable. The Fed should do more to accelerate our sluggish job growth.
The Economic Policy Institute, a non-partisan think tank seeking to achieve a prosperous and fair economy, estimates that even at February’s pace of job creation, we won’t reach a return to full employment until 2019.
Given these dreary predictions, you might have expected unemployment – and how to deal with it – to have been given serious attention at the Federal Reserve’s policy meeting on Tuesday.
Unfortunately, it was not.
Instead, the Fed announced it would take no further steps to aid the recovery. It plans to keep short-term interest rates at their current level even after admitting they were still uncertain about which way the economy was headed or if a recovery could be sustained.
If the Fed is unsure whether our economy can sustain a recovery, then why wouldn’t it be doing everything in its power to get us back to full employment by pursuing more sensible, expansionary policies?
This gross inaction is symptomatic of the zealotry so rampant in Washington that has bullied the Fed into focusing on controlling inflation rather than job-creation policies.
Some background: The Fed is the central banking system in the United States, and it was installed in 1913 to ensure a safer, more flexible and more stable monetary and financial system. The Fed manages economic conditions by influencing the direction of interest rates.  When the economy is running too slow, the Fed lowers interest rates, which spurs economic development and creates the risk of inflation. Consequently, the Fed raises interest rates if the economy is running too fast, which slows economic development and curbs the risk of inflation.
Inflation hawks over at the Fed and politicians like Ron Paul have argued for the past few years that Zimbabwe-like inflation will soon devastate the U.S. economy due to too much monetary policy from the Fed.
These predictions have proven incorrect.
In fact, the Fed has more than tripled the size of its monetary base since fall 2010 in successful efforts to stabilize the financial crisis, and inflation has only risen an average annual rate of 1.5 percent a year.
Meanwhile, as I previously mentioned, unemployment remains severely high despite the modest improvements in recent months.
And the Fed only expects slow improvement, cautioning that the new jobs gains may not be able to sustain economic growth.
This all adds up to a clear case for more expansionary action from the Fed.
The Fed desperately needs to engage in another program of buying long-term bonds, generally referred to as “quantitative easing” that lowers interest rates encouraging economic growth.
It’s simple Econ 101: Firms are more likely to purchase equipment and hire workers when they can do so cheaply.
Expansionary monetary policies like these have been effective in the past at moderating the “Great Recession” and would undoubtedly enhance job growth and conditions now.
The Fed needs to stand up to the political bullies protesting about inflation and correctly reiterate their emphasis on jobs.  The Fed’s economic leadership is essential for the future of America.
Jay Meyers is a 19-year-old economics freshman from Shreveport. Follow him on twitter @TDR_jmeyers.
 
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