Despite Trump's attacks on Fed, central bank remains popular with voters
President Trump’s repeated attacks on the Federal Reserve and its chairman, Jerome Powell, have done little to dent American voters’ favorable opinion of the U.S. central bank.
According to a new survey by the Pew Research Center, 65 percent of Americans view the Fed favorably, despite historically low levels of public trust in the federal government.
While both Democrats and Republicans tend to express positive views about the central bank, Democrats, at 70 percent favorability, are more likely to do so than Republicans, at 62 percent favorability.
Trump frequently lashes out at the Fed for not aggressively cutting interest rates. Amid concerns about a darkening economic outlook, Trump has blamed policymakers for raising rates too high, too quickly, while urging them to lower rates to zero, or even negative.
So far this year, the Fed has cut interest twice, voting most recently during its meeting this month to reduce borrowing costs by a modest 25-basis points, citing weakening exports and persistently low inflation.
“As I predicted, Jay Powell and the Federal Reserve have allowed the Dollar to get so strong, especially relative to ALL other currencies, that our manufacturers are being negatively affected. Fed Rate too high. They are their own worst enemies, they don’t have a clue. Pathetic!” he wrote in a tweet on Tuesday, after the weakest U.S. manufacturing reading in 10 years.
But during an interview with FOX Business on Wednesday, Philadelphia Federal Reserve President Patrick Harker said that despite headwinds from the 15-month long U.S.-China trade war, he sees no recession in 2020.
Instead of cutting rates to boost the economy, Harker said improving education could help people get jobs and preserve the record-long economic expansion.
Powell, who was hand-selected by Trump almost two years ago, has maintained the Fed’s independence in the face of the political criticism.
“Political factors play absolutely no role in our process, and my colleagues and I would not tolerate any attempt to include them in our decision-making or our discussions,” Powell said at the beginning of September.