Jerome H Powell: Encouraging economic development in high-poverty rural communities

Speech by Mr Jerome H Powell, Chairman of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System, at "Rural Places, Rural Spaces: Closing Financial Services Gaps in Persistent Poverty America", a policy forum sponsored by Hope Enterprise Corporation, Mississippi Valley State University, Itta Bena, Mississippi, 12 February 2019.

The views expressed in this speech are those of the speaker and not the view of the BIS.

Central bank speech  | 
13 February 2019
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Thank you for that kind introduction. I also want to thank Hope Enterprise Corporation for inviting me to speak and Mississippi Valley State University (MVSU) for hosting us on its lovely campus.

It is a great pleasure to visit the Mississippi Delta. This region gave America the priceless musical heritage of the Blues. It was also the site of some of the watershed events of the civil rights movement. But the Delta, like many rural areas, has long confronted the challenge of poverty. Today I'll speak about three areas of opportunity for addressing the challenges of rural poverty--education and workforce development, entrepreneurship and small business development, as well as access to financial services-the topic of this conference.