 "Jerome Powell, Chair of the Federal Reserve")
By Gregory Korte
Public confidence in Jerome Powell’s leadership of the Federal Reserve has dropped precipitously, according to a new survey, and is now at or below his predecessors’ as the central bank wages its war against inflation.
A Gallup poll released Tuesday shows 36% of US adults say they have a “great deal” or a “fair amount” of confidence that the Federal Reserve chairman would do or recommend the right thing for the economy.
That’s lower than Janet Yellen’s 37% during her first year leading the Fed in 2014 — though the difference is within the survey’s margin of error of plus-or-minus 4 percentage points — and is the lowest level recorded since Gallup began tracking public confidence in the central banking chief in 2001. Former Chairman Ben Bernanke’s lowest point came in 2012, at 39%.
Confidence in the Fed generally follows the health of the economy. In April 2020, just a month after the onset of Covid-19 lockdowns, confidence in Powell was at 58% — the highest approval of any Fed chairman since Alan Greenspan in 2004.
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But as inflation mounted and the Fed began to raise interest rates as a result, Powell’s approval dropped sharply.
Perceptions of the Fed are also colored by politics. Powell succeeded Yellen in 2018 under then-President Donald Trump. He enjoys the confidence of 60% of Democrats but only 21% of Republicans. When Trump was president, Republican confidence in Powell outpaced Democrats’ by an average of 14 percentage points.
Indeed, confidence in Powell is comparable to that of political actors.
President Joe Biden has the confidence of 35% of Americans on the economy — the lowest of any president since George W. Bush received 34% during the 2008 financial crisis.
Yellen, now Biden’s Treasury secretary, is at 37%, the lowest in that job since Jacob Lew’s 20% in 2014.
About 38% of Americans have confidence in congressional Republicans on the economy, compared to 34% for congressional Democrats.
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