Economic policymaking in the United States: New procedures under Humphrey-Hawkins

✍ Scribed by Steven M. Roberts

• Book ID: 104293475
• Publisher: Elsevier Science
• Year: 1979
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 611 KB
• Volume: 1
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 0165-1889
• DOI: 10.1016/s0165-1889(79)90146-5

✦ Synopsis

it (the Humphrey-Hawkins Bill) provides a major improvement in the way in which economic policy decisions are made. It requires that economic policy be designed to achieve specific, flexible, short-and long-term numerical goals for economic performance. It also establishes the procedures our Government will use to carry out its efforts to meet these goals in a consistent, comprehensive, longterm and focused manner. ' Senator Muriel Humphrey, May 8, 1978 This article describes changes in economic policymaking in the United States that have been instituted by the enactment of the Humphrey-Hawkins Act in late 1978. This act amends the Employment Act of 1946 and replaces its vague goals of 'maximum employment, production and purchasing power' with expanded and specific economic goals that include (1) legislated numerical goals for unemployment and inflation and (2) a set of numerical goals to be quantified each year by the President in his Economic Report. The policymaking framework involving the Administration, the Congress and the Federal Reserve provides for better coordination and fuller integration with the Congressional budget process.