Between 1999 and 2006, housing debt more than doubled.3 So it’s not so surprising that we got an anemic rebound. The financial crisis unleashed powerful forces that have damped spending and sapped the recovery of its vigor. I’ll mention three. First, it destroyed a huge amount of household wealth. Second, it flattened the housing market. Third, it made it hard for businesses and households to get credit. Let’s look at each of these. First, when house prices collapsed, the wealth of American households plunged by about six-and-a-half trillion dollars. That equals more than 40 percent of the total size of the U.S. economy. Many people went from feeling rich to feeling poor, with neither the means nor the will to spend. Instead, they became intent on repairing their finances by increasing their saving and trimming their debt. In other words, they deleveraged. During the recession, the household saving rate climbed to about 6 percent of income from about 1 percent. It’s still about 4-1/2 percent. In the long run, higher saving is healthy. But, in the near term, it puts a brake on spending and slows growth. Second, the depressed housing market has been a drag on growth. Home construction plays an important role in the economy, of course. When you add in items that often go with a new home – things such as furniture, carpets, and appliances – you’re talking about a significant fraction of overall economic activity.4 Today, there are still millions of homes in foreclosure, and millions more on the verge.
The policy actions the Fed takes will depend on how economic conditions develop. If circumstances change, our policies will adapt. No matter the circumstances, I assure you that we at the Fed are doing everything we can to achieve the goals of maximum employment and stable prices. Thank you very much. References Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. 2011. “Minutes of the Federal Open Market Committee”, June 21–22. Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System. 2012. “Press Release”, January 25. Federal Reserve Bank of New York. 2010. “Quarterly Report on Household Debt and Credit”, August. Feroli, Michael E., Ethan S. Harris, Amir Sufi, and Kenneth D. West. 2012. “Housing, Monetary Policy, and the Recovery”. Presentation to the 2012 U.S. Monetary Policy Forum, New York, February 24. Jordà, Òscar , Moritz Schularick, and Alan M. Taylor. 2011. “When Credit Bites Back: Leverage, Business Cycles, and Crises”. NBER Working Paper 17621. Mian, Atif, Kamalesh Rao, and Amir Sufi. 2011. “Household Balance Sheets, Consumption, and the Economic Slump”. Presentation at American Economics Association meetings, Atlanta, GA, January 8, 2012. Reinhart, Carmen M., and Kenneth S. Rogoff. 2009. This Time Is Different: Eight Centuries of Financial Folly. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press. 7  For more information, see Board of Governors (2012). BIS central bankers’ speeches  5  Williams, John C. 2012. “The Federal Reserve’s Mandate and Best Practice Monetary Policy”. Presentation to the Marian Miner Cook Athenaeum, Claremont McKenna College, February 13. 6  BIS central bankers’ speeches