Janet Yellen on Workforce Development

As often noted, the Fed’s economists and bureaucrats operate on the assumption that everything they do is part of the solution, but they are never part of the problem. Yellen’s recent speech at the National Community Reinvestment Coalition is centered around the theme of “creating a just economy.” Allegedly, a just economy needs an institution with the authority to bail out banks, subsidize the world’s largest financial institutions, and explicitly aim to increase the cost of goods and services for people everywhere.
To solve the problem of stubbornly high unemployment rates in lower-income areas, Yellen has some ideas. Spoiler: there’s nothing about halting the Central Bank’s interest rate manipulation, which destroys capital by misallocating resources and makes economies less wealthy. There’s also nothing about the effect of minimum wage laws on those trying to find work, but who are priced out of the labor market.
Instead, we get this, as solution number one:
Probably the most important workforce development strategy is improving the quality of general education.
As if merely “educating people” (having them spend 14 years of their lives in the classroom with government approved curriculum) can solve the problem of an increasingly stagnant economy.

This post was published at Ludwig von Mises Institute on March 30, 2017.