Bank of America CEO on jobs report, job growth and bias allegations
WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA/KECY) - Bank of America CEO Brian Moynihan spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about the most recent job report.
According to Brennan, economists at the Bank of America say there is no rate hike this year and no recession, prompting her to ask Moynihan if it was the case following the job report released Friday, to which Moynihan said:
"Yeah, it's still the case, and that's a—less growth than they would have had six, nine months ago, and reflects the impact of the tariff war and the trade and all that—but they still think we continue to grow. And we're growing at a slow rate, say, one and a half percent this year, little more next year, and a little more the year after that. But it will take inflation—for the Fed to get inflation out of the system, really through the end of '26 into '27 down to the 2% level. And that's why they have the Fed holding. What they believe is sort of in the middle of next year, the Fed will start cutting and bring the Fed funds rate closer to what would be a more normal rate, around three percent, three and a half percent."
During the interview, Brennan and Moynihan talked about job growth in the United States and the impact of artificial intelligence.
"The impact of technology on human work content as a percentage of productivity has been huge. In our company...in 2010 when I started with the management team, we had 285,000 people. We have 212,000 people today. That was the impact of technology. We're bigger, more customers, more transactions, more reports to the government, more data, et cetera. So the impact has always been huge. AI gives you a place to go that we've never been able to go before. In other words, they're jobs that take text, think about it, and produce it. Many, many jobs in a company. Our research team, now you're able to maybe use a machine to enhance that activity. So we believe that people harness AI for their benefit are going to be very successful. My teammates who harness AI for their benefit are very successful. It's nervous making for young kids now, saying, will the jobs be there for me? Then I say, look back historically. America has a lot more people working here. And think about the amount of technology came in over the last 50 years, and we have twice as many people work in this country as we did 50 years ago, twice as many, and the population has only gone up by about a third. So think about that dynamic as it finds its way through. That's the glass half full part of it. But it will have an impact. I don't think it's impacting a lot right now, because many companies are just trying to learn how to use it. Technology has impacted, and AI gives it a place to go it hasn't gone so far."
Brian Moynihan, CEO, Bank of America
Later in the interview, Brennan and Moynihan talked about the bias allegations President Donald Trump claims about Bank of America.
Back in January, President Trump talked about them saying in part, "Many conservatives complained that the banks are not allowing them to do business within the bank, and that included a place called Bank of America. This conservative- They don't take conservative business. And I don't know if the regulators mandated that because of Biden or what."
When asked if he wanted to respond to the allegation that conservatives are being allowed to do business at the bank, Moynihan said:
"We have 70 million consumers, and we're the biggest small business lender. That's not...the issue they're focused on is the regulators impact on this industry. And you heard Senator Scott talk about this this week. This reputation, this after the fact, look, that you banked x, and now after the fact, you're gonna say x didn't turn out to be what you thought. So we look at it. We look at it based on risk. People may feel those decisions are made for some other reason, but we always make it on what's best for our company, what's best for our client."
Brennan followed up by asking Moynihan if he feels comfortable doing business with the gun, oil, gas and tobacco industry, and Moynihan responded saying, "We do business with all those industries. Individual companies because of credit decision stuff, that's different. But the reality is, is that if they gave us clarity from the regulatory thing and avoid the second guessing, that would be helpful, and I think that's what the President was pointing out, if you listen to him."
To watch more of Brennan's interview with Moynihan, click here.
