Bernanke Comments on Merits of Balanced Budget Amendment and Unemployment Stats

Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke was testifying before Congress today when Republican Congressman Steve Stivers of Ohio asked him to share his thoughts on using a balanced budget amendment to reduce America's fiscal deficit. Although Chairman Bernanke usually doesn't like to comment on the political processes of Congress, he did say that he believed that, in general, rules could be helpful in achieving balance. He qualified his statement by saying that he wasn't sure whether or not a balanced budget amendment would be the best way to balance the budget but he did seem supportive of the idea even if somewhat coy. Congressman Stivers also said that he wanted Chairman Bernanke to pay more attention to the way that the Bureau of Labor Statistics came up with its unemployment data. Congressman Stivers expressed a widely held criticism of the unemployment statistics that they don't give a true picture of the current employment situation in the United States because they do not take into account the underemployed or people who have been unemployed for so long that they have stopped looking for work altogether. Chairman Bernanke acknowledged the points that Congressman Stivers made about the unemployment statistics but also said that the Bureau of Labor Statistics had other unemployment statistics that addressed some of the concerns mentioned by Congressman Stivers.