The coronavirus pandemic has widened deep-rooted inequities in American economy, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Monday.

“Along racial, gender, and socioeconomic lines, those least able to bear it, unfortunately, were those who were most affected,” he said at the Gender and the Economy Conference held in Washington, D.C. via webcast.

“Women make up the majority of frontline workers, who have been under substantial strain – and subject to personal risks – during the pandemic. Additionally, women took on the majority of caring responsibilities, for older relatives and children alike,” he told at the symposium hosted by the Division of Consumer and Community Affairs, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System.

Stressing that women suffered more from job losses in the COVID-19 recession than men, Powell noted that the unemployment rate for women in the US was 16.1% in April 2020, compared with 13.6% for men.

The Fed chair said the gap persisted until September 2020, and while it has since reversed, it does not account many women who have entirely left the workforce.

Powell did not comment on the Fed's monetary policies, nor rising inflation in the post-pandemic era.

A survey by the New York Fed, however, showed that US consumers' inflation expectation peaked for the short-term, by rising 0.4 percentage point to 5.7%.

The inflation expectation remained unchanged for the medium-term at 4.2%, according to the Survey of Consumer Expectations for October.

While the median one-year ahead expected change in the cost of college education and in the price of food increased by 1.5 and 2.1 percentage points to 7.4% and 9.1%, respectively; the median expected change in the cost of rent increased by 0.4 percentage points to 10.1%, the survey showed. (Anadolu Anadolu)

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