AGC Feeds the Fed Stimulus Information

On May 19, AGC Chief Economist Ken Simonson was invited 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. Ken told the governors that respondents to his 12,000-reader Data DIGest have begun to report 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. Ken also referred to the change in materials costs in the year since he had given Chairman Bernanke a copy of the Construction Inflation Alert at the last Fed briefing he attended. Ken spoke later in the week to Austan Goolsbee, a member of the President's Council of Economic Advisers, offering to supply information on stimulus contracts and hiring. Ken also met with chief statistician of the U.S. and the directors of business statistics 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. These are among the many recent examples of AGC's interactions with senior officials in all sectors of the federal government.