The charts below show the product of the effective federal funds rate and the unemployment rate on a monthly basis. The Federal Reserve is tasked with promoting "maximum employment and stable prices". Generally, it will try to move the federal funds rate lower when unemployment is high, and higher when unemployment is low, but these charts appear to support my feeling that near-zero rates have become the default. I made three charts: one beginning with 1990, one beginning with 2008, and one beginning with 2009. The most recent observation had the effective federal funds rate at .08 while the unemployment rate was 4.8 for a product of .384. While the federal funds rate has gone lower than this a few times, never has it done so with such a low unemployment rate.
