Yellen Points to Participation as Sign of Room to Run: Chart

(Bloomberg) -- Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen is finally seeing what she hoped for from the labor market, and it’s buying her time before raising rates. After six years of job gains, the participation rate and a broad measure of unemployment are holding steady -- suggesting workers are coming back into the labor force. “We’re not seeing strong pressures on utilization suggesting overheating, and my assessment would be, based on this evidence, that the economy has a little more room to run than might have been previously thought,” Yellen said at a press conference in Washington Wednesday. “That’s good news.” 

To contact the reporter on this story: Jeanna Smialek in Washington at jsmialek1@bloomberg.net. To contact the editors responsible for this story: Brendan Murray at brmurray@bloomberg.net, Sophie Caronello