John C. Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, discussed the U.S. economy during his visit to Mount Saint Mary College on Thursday, May 7.
John C. Williams, President and Chief Executive Officer of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, discussed economic resilience and community impact during a talk at Mount Saint Mary College on Thursday, May 7.
The event, hosted by Hudson Valley Pattern for Progress and its President and CEO, Adam Bosch, focused on the current state of the regional and national economy, the challenges facing local families, and the unique role of community engagement in shaping monetary policy.
The session was held at the Mount campus, highlighted by Bosch for its deep roots in the community. Bosch opened the event by sharing a personal anecdote about attending basketball camps on the campus as a child, noting that “Mount Saint Mary College is a place where the community can connect to itself.”
Williams’ visit to the Hudson Valley was part of his ongoing efforts to gather “beige book” style anecdotal evidence directly from business and community leaders. He emphasized that these on-the-ground insights are a critical component of the Federal Reserve’s decision-making process.
“Part of my job, and part of the job of my team, is really to understand what’s happening in our district,” Williams said. “If I say monetary policy needs to be data dependent, I mean not only the economic data like the unemployment rate or the inflation rate, but all the information that we gather through all of our sources, whether through financial markets…or actually coming out and talking to real people.”
During the discussion, Williams addressed the “K-shaped” nature of the post-pandemic recovery, acknowledging the significant pressure on lower- and moderate-income families due to rising costs in housing, energy, and food. However, he remained optimistic about the broader U.S. economic trajectory.
“We actually saw a U.S. economy that continued to grow and show remarkable resilience,” he said. “Businesses and consumers continued to spend and invest. GDP growth was about 2 percent last year... seems like it’s about the same this year, at least based on what we’ve seen so far.”
Regarding the Federal Reserve’s primary mandate of price stability, Williams highlighted the progress made in curbing the post-pandemic surge in costs.
“The big story is, of course, inflation,” he said. “We were seeing inflation coming down from the very high levels of just a few years ago, down closer to our 2 percent goal…and that’s been interrupted a bit because of the effects of tariffs and now energy prices. So I think right now, we came into this with an economy that’s pretty resilient, driven in significant part by the massive investments in AI data centers. And we’re seeing that here in the region; we’re seeing it everywhere else too.”
Williams said that despite domestic and geopolitical uncertainties, the United States remains a global leader in economic dynamism.
“Everybody in the world looks to the United States in terms of the economy as the in the most optimistic way,” he said. “We have the highest levels of productivity, we have the highest expectations of productivity growth... We are the envy of the world about the dynamism of our economy, the ability to adapt to change, and to grow.”
Mount Saint Mary College is a private, co-educational institution in Newburgh, N.Y., providing a liberal arts education with strong professional programs in nursing, business, education, and more.