MNI BRIEF: Powell Looking For Series of Strong Job Reports

Federal Reserve Chair Jay Powell said Thursday he's looking for several more strong job reports like the one from March before judging the economic recovery has shown progress toward full employment, adding that conditions remain uneven.

"We got a taste of what faster progress will look like with the March employment report -- close to a million jobs, particularly if you add in the revisions for January and February -- and we want to see a string of ones like that so we can really begin to show progress toward our goals," he said at an IMF forum.

A full economic reopening will be here "fairly soon" but the recovery "remains uneven and incomplete," with the unemployment rate for the bottom quartile of workers hovering at 20%, he said.

MNI has reported the FOMC could become more bullish about the economy's prospects by the time it issues the next round of forecasts in June.