Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke testifies before the House Budget Committee today. Lawmakers are questioning the Fed's plans on avoiding inflation and the current unemployment rate.
Playing it safe, Bernankes said U.S. employment will "remain high for some time." While stating that job growth and inflation are still too low, He added that a more rapid pace of economic development is "likely in 2011" but "several years" until unemployment at normal levels.
House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-WI) pressed Bernanke on inflation, to which the Fed Chairman basically said that inflation is not a problem right now.
In a speech at the National Press Club last week, Bernanke said, "It will be several years before the unemployment rate has returned to a more normal level," adding, "until we see a sustained period of stronger job creation, we cannot consider the recovery to be truly established."
As head of the Federal Reserve during the 2008 recession, Bernanke has steered the economy through the greatest financial crisis since the Great Depression, while trying to regulate interest rates and inflation.