Higher interest rates and slower output growth also appear to be weighing on business fixed investment. Despite the slowdown in growth, the labor market remains extremely tight. The unemployment rate was 3.4 percent in January, its lowest level since 1969.
The Federal Reserve strongly supports this and other efforts to review the federal banking laws periodically to determine whether they may be streamlined without jeopardizing the safety and soundness of this nation’s insured depository institutions or undermining consumer protection or other important policy principles that Congress has established to guide the development of our financial system.