Patrick Harker, Speech: The Outlook for the Economy and Federal Reserve Policy

“In the early days of the pandemic, I was often asked what “shape” the recovery would take. Would it be a “V?” An “L?” A “U”? More often than not, I liked to say it would look a little bit like a “Nike swoosh” — a sharp decline followed by a gradual upward climb. Today, I’d amend that to say it looks like a Nike swoosh drawn by somebody who has had one too many cups of coffee — i.e., me on many workdays. We’re climbing undeniably upward, but it’s been a jagged path, largely a result of the virus’s wiles. You can see hits to growth that coincided with last year’s winter surge, the emergence of the Delta variant last summer, and now Omicron.”