Entitled Back to the New Basics, the 17th annual Community Bankers Symposium focused on the current issues facing community bankers, ranging from cybersecurity to global crises to the importance of diversity in banking. The event, held on Friday, November 17, 2023, was hosted jointly by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, the Federal Deposit Insurance Corporation, the Office of the Comptrolle ..read more

The importance of banking institutions valuing the communities they serve was reasserted in a recent gathering of researchers and industry leaders at a Chicago Fed Economic Mobility Project event. Business models and market forces prove to be insufficient explanations for why we see fewer formal banking services offered and/or leveraged in Black and low-income communities, according to research ..read more

Upon becoming president of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago in January, Austan Goolsbee called the Chicago Fed’s Seventh District “the backbone of the American economy.” Now that he’s had a chance to travel in the District, we sat down to talk with him about what else he’s learned about it—and why it’s important to make such visits. The following tra ..read more

Background information for exhibits in Chicago Fed President Austan D. Goolsbee’s speech, delivered at the Peterson Institute for International Economics on September 28, 2023. Since March 2022, the Federal Reserve has tightened policy substantially, increasing the federal funds rate by 525 basis points (bps), in an effort to diminish inflation by bringing demand in line with supply. I ..read more

Alongside homeownership, a college degree has been widely regarded as one of the most effective ways to achieve the American dream of financial security, even upward mobility. But college sticker prices have risen steadily, making postsecondary education more expensive relative to median household income. So does it still make sense to invest in a college education? And once people decide to m ..read more

Over the past 20 years, U.S. school districts have increasingly adopted funding models that aim to allocate money to schools based on individual student need. One such approach—weighted student funding—apportions funds to schools based on a combination of total enrollment and the characteristics of the students they serve. Chicago Public Schools (CPS) adopted such a funding model, known as s ..read more

The U.S. auto industry is highly cyclical and even when the overall industry is up or down, the fortunes of individual UAW-represented automakers have waxed and waned. What follows is a summary of previous rounds of bargaining between 2003 and 2019. Contracts during this period were for four years, though the parties could—and can in the future—agree to any term. This ..read more

In two previous blog posts, I’ve talked about the backdrop and environment for 2023 UAW negotiations with Ford, GM, and Stellantis, recent contract history, and how that history has impacted hourly labor costs, wages, and other conditions of work. In this post, I cover the typical process for these contract talks, which is largely guided by the UAW’s constitution and e ..read more

The U.S. automotive industry is a large and critical part of the U.S. economy, and nowhere is that more apparent than in the Federal Reserve's Seventh District, home of the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.1 About 60% of the UAW members impacted by this year's high-profile UAW labor negotiations with Ford, General Motors (GM), and Stellantis work in the Chicago Fed's District.2 These three compani ..read more

This is the first of two blog posts summarizing Creating Conversations on the Challenges and Opportunities Facing Rural Economic Development—a conference cohosted by the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago and the W. E. Upjohn Institute for Employment Research on September 28–29, 2022, in western Michigan. The conference featured two major segments. The first segment was a field trip to ..read more