Feeding the Fed Your Facts

On May 19, I had the privilege, along with a handful of other members of the National Association for Business Economics, to brief Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and Governor Dan Tarullo on the state of the economy. Thanks to the feedback many of the 12,000 subscribers to the Data DIGest have provided to my "Questions of the Week," I was able to report that some of you are now receiving some stimulus contracts and have seen an improvement in the state and local bond market, but no loosening of credit for developer-financed construction projects. I also updated the governors and staff on the changes in materials costs in the year since I gave Chairman Bernanke a copy of the Construction Inflation Alert at the last Fed briefing I attended. Later in the week, I had a chance to speak with Austan Goolsbee, a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers and staff director of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, offering to supply information on stimulus contracts and hiring. Steve Sandherr also communicated with the Board about the progress of stimulus and the possibility of additional stimulus funding. Additionally, I met with the chief statistician of the U.S. and top officials at the Census Bureau, Bureau of Labor Statistics and the Bureau of Economic Analysis, providing each with suggestions of data that would be useful for the construction industry and for public agencies concerned about construction costs or jobs. AGC was the only construction-related representative in these meetings. In each of these cases, your feedback and suggestions enabled AGC to provide specific facts and ideas to better inform policy makers. Keep those emails coming to simonsonk@agc.org! For more information, contact Ken Simonson at (703) 837-5313 or simonsonk@agc.org.