Powell has largely hued to Yellen's benchmark rate raising schedule, so I struggle to think of how she would have improved this situation.
The real central question to this article is buried halfway in and receives little coverage. Why are wages more or less stagnant when unemployment is hovering around 4%? Inflationary concerns would be more muted were wage gains outpacing inflationary pressure, but as it stands, that isn't presently the case. Possible that it's due to fewer entrepreneurial businesses being created as opposed to historical averages? Possible that it's due to decline in union membership? Possible also that productivity growth has lagged compared to past recoveries?
And really, from a policymaking perspective, we should be more interested in which sectors are experiencing wage growth in excess of inflation.
The newest argument to explain this is that monopsony is a much bigger factor than anybody previously realized. The Brookings Institute has done some interesting research into this.
This is a great point and the Brookings brief was excellent. To my understanding, the fundamental gist is that, because of monopsonic power, we're seeing fewer new entrants to the markets and, because those firms had historically been wage growth drivers, we're presently seeing stagnant wages. The policy prescription to this, I would think, is to decrease regulatory capture that's made it more challenging for newer businesses to compete against the established entities.
Edit:I would also add to this that the severe decline in robust antitrust enforcement also impacts the barriers to entry for new firms and causes the new firms that DO spring up to be purchased by the larger firms, snuffing out the potential for competition and, thus, wage growth
