The severe decline in the economy precipitated by the financial crisis and the magnitude of job and production loss in the Great Recession that followed have made a focus on recovery both understandable and imperative.
But as I have prepared for Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings every six to seven weeks by examining incoming data and the analyses of our own staff and of outside economists, I have been struck by the evidence of longer-term challenges to the American economy that poke through shorter-term discussions.