Our People, Our Work

At the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, we’re committed to a strong and resilient economy for all. That means our team is working every day to serve the 15 million people who are part of the Eighth Federal Reserve District.

The St. Louis Fed serves as a trusted partner in:

• Conducting the nation’s monetary policy
• Fostering a safe, sound, and stable financial system
• Advancing a safe, efficient, and accessible payments system
• Promoting consumer protection and community development
• Supporting the U.S. Treasury as a fiscal agent

Our employees carried out this public service with passion and purpose in 2024, as illustrated below.

 

President Musalem’s Remarks and Community Engagement

After assuming his role on April 2, 2024, St. Louis Fed President Alberto Musalem visited communities in the Eighth District and spoke with approximately 2,000 business and community leaders. During these conversations, he heard how stakeholders were experiencing the economy and shared his monetary policy views. Among his trips, he visited a manufacturing plant in Louisville, Ky., a steel production facility in Osceola, Ark., and the Donald Danforth Plant Science Center in St. Louis.

By engaging with people throughout the District, President Musalem gained important insights that he brought to monetary policy discussions at Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) meetings in Washington, D.C.

Economic Insights

In addition to President Musalem’s visits with stakeholders, the St. Louis Fed’s research economists played a role in gathering data and insights while monitoring economic conditions. Based on their research, our economists shared valuable information with President Musalem in preparation for his participation in FOMC meetings.

Economic insights from the Bank’s outreach efforts also contributed to the Beige Book, a summary of regional economic conditions released two weeks before each of last year’s eight FOMC meetings.

St. Louis Fed researchers regularly engaged a variety of Eighth District groups, gathering information from our boards of directors, advisory councils, surveys, phone calls and emails, as well as data from industry and government sources.

4,675
people attended St. Louis Fed public dialogue and outreach events across the Eighth District, up 17% from the previous year.

Regional executives Matuschka Lindo Briggs in Little Rock, Ark., Seema Sheth in Louisville and Douglas Scarboro in Memphis, Tenn., also engaged in outreach efforts through more than 50 external speaking events.

They also strengthened the dialogue between Main Street and the St. Louis Fed by hosting more than 60 events and roundtables on topics ranging from workforce updates to regional economic outlooks.

 

Economists at the St. Louis Fed helped inform monetary policy and everyday economic decisions by publishing timely data and research to help people and organizations understand the economy. In 2024, they wrote on numerous topics relevant to people and communities, from inflation and household wealth to trade and labor market conditions.

St. Louis Fed economists’ work appeared in several publications covering academic research, interactive data tools and informative blogs.

• Review is the St. Louis Fed’s journal of scholarly research that delves into monetary policy, macroeconomics, and more. Some of 2024’s most popular articles explored the last mile of disinflation, real wage growth at the micro level, the use of artificial intelligence for inflation forecasts and nominal wage adjustments during high inflation and tight labor markets.
• St. Louis Fed On the Economy^® blog offers timely commentary, analysis and data from our economic experts. Last year, some of the most popular blog posts included an analysis of credit card debt delinquency, how the Big Mac index relates to consumer inflation, a commercial real estate overview and how search and matching models in economics can be applied to online dating.

Top 1%
was the ranking earned by our Research division among research institutions worldwide.

Top 3%
was the ranking earned by our Research division among U.S. research institutions.

83 million
pages of our research content were viewed—a 5% increase in one year. That content, which includes FRED^® and FRASER^® page views, reached users in 193 countries.

Your Trusted Source for Economic Data

On the data side, the Research division maintained more than 825,000 U.S. and international data series from 114 sources in FRED, our premier and award-winning economic database. FRED’s graphs were also featured on the FRED Blog, which spotlights data and insights from St. Louis Fed economists, resulting in more than 650,000 page views.

18 million
users accessed FRED’s hundreds of thousands of economic data time series from scores of national, international, public and private sources.

Last year, the St. Louis Fed’s digital library FRASER celebrated its 20th year of curating U.S. economic, financial and banking history data and documents—with a particular focus on the history of the Federal Reserve System. In 2024, FRASER added more than 185,000 items to its library, giving users access to more vintage sources to help tell their data stories.

297,467
people followed the Bank’s social media accounts—an increase of 10% from the previous year—to learn more about the work of the Bank and the Federal Reserve System.

No. 2
was the ranking of the St. Louis Fed’s social media accounts among the 12 Federal Reserve banks (measured by followers).

 

The St. Louis Fed remained committed to ensuring a safe and sound banking system in 2024 through the work of its Supervision division. St. Louis Fed staff members are responsible for examining and inspecting state-chartered banks, bank holding companies, savings and loan holding companies, and financial holding companies.

St. Louis Fed bank examiners were tasked with assessing and understanding the conditions of Eighth District financial institutions, including the review of operations, risks and resources. Their work also helped foster financial market stability and compliance with laws and regulations that govern bank activities and protect consumers. In 2024, the St. Louis Fed supervised 130 state member banks and 437 bank, financial, and savings and loan holding companies.

437
bank, financial, and savings and loan holding companies were supervised by the St. Louis Fed.

130
state member banks were supervised by the St. Louis Fed.

$363 billion
was the amount of total assets of Eighth District banks supervised by the St. Louis Fed, accounting for 53.1% of all banking assets in the District.

Community Banking Outreach

Our Supervision staff members also engaged with community bankers, regulators and other industry professionals to discuss the latest supervisory developments.

Through interactive programming such as Ask the Fed^®, regulators, bankers and their boards of directors heard from Fed experts and guest speakers on key banking topics. The St. Louis Fed hosted 20 events in 2024, with discussions ranging from updates on specific economic sectors to fintech arrangements.

44,000
bankers and regulators participated in Ask the Fed webinars.

Fiscal Agent for the U.S. Treasury

The St. Louis Fed is designated by the U.S. Department of the Treasury to provide certain types of financial services to the federal government. In our work as a fiscal agent for the Treasury, our team promotes financial integrity and operational efficiency in the federal government. Included in this work was the Bank’s Treasury Relations and Support Office (TRSO), which manages the Federal Reserve System’s overall relationship with the U.S. Treasury. TRSO coordinates with Treasury and Reserve bank leaders to identify and pursue enterprise strategies that provide for the efficient development of financial management solutions for Treasury initiatives.

In support of the Treasury’s Do Not Pay program, Bank staff provided federal and state government agencies with critical information needed to identify, eliminate and prevent improper payments. In fiscal year 2024, the Bank identified $2.82 billion in improper and stopped payments in its role as fiscal agent to the Treasury. Our team provided daily and monthly Treasury statements, resulting in transparency to the public. We also promoted government efficiencies through electronic invoicing and payment collections.

$2.82 billion
in improper and stopped payments were identified by the Bank in its role as fiscal agent to the U.S. Department of the Treasury and its Do Not Pay program in fiscal year 2024.

Efficiency
through electronic invoicing and payment collections.

Currency and Other Financial Services

Bank staff also supported the payments system through our currency and coin operations. This work ensured the currency circulated in our District was high quality and authentic, with unfit currency removed from circulation.

In addition to providing currency services, the St. Louis Fed, as part of the Federal Reserve System, helped facilitate other financial services, including commercial check processing and supporting electronic forms of payment that lower risk and increase efficiency.

949 million
currency notes were inspected, with 169 million removed from circulation.

1,826
suspected counterfeit notes were withdrawn from circulation.

 

Pathways to Progress Events

The St. Louis Fed’s 2024 Pathways to Progress events, hosted by our Community Development department, explored ways to increase young adults’ participation in the workforce. The Bank welcomed community development organizations, nonprofits, financial institutions, academics, government personnel and other stakeholders to discuss research concerning young adult employment and the challenges associated with economic disconnection.

Following the event series, the Bank released a report featuring research on labor market experiences of young adults in the Eighth District (PDF). The report included state-by-state fact sheets to help illustrate the experiences of young adults in the workforce.

251
leaders attended five Pathways to Progress events across the Eighth District.

Bank On National Data Hub

Bank On is a national effort to ensure everyone has access to a safe and affordable bank or credit union account. In 2024, the St. Louis Fed invited all financial institutions with accounts certified as meeting Bank On National Account Standards to once again report data to its Bank On National Data (BOND) Hub. Our Community Development team aggregated the 2023 data and provided findings related to account openings, account usage and online access.

The BOND Hub helps financial institutions see whether their customers are getting the full benefit of certified safe and low-cost accounts aimed at helping them build financial stability. The BOND Hub also allows financial institutions to analyze the performance of Bank On-certified products for regulatory examinations of community services.

Last year’s Bank On report noted that Bank On-certified accounts had been opened in 89% of U.S. ZIP codes. In addition, the BOND Hub added nine new financial institutions that reported data, and saw the number of current Bank On accounts surpass 11 million across the country.

Community Development Pulse Surveys

The St. Louis Fed also contributed to Federal Reserve System projects in 2024, including the Community Perspectives Survey and the Small Business Credit Survey.

• Our Community Development team assisted in the nationwide Fed survey of more than 900 representatives of organizations serving low- and moderate-income communities. The resulting 2024 Community Perspectives Survey report outlined economic conditions affecting these communities, from housing to personal finance challenges. A second report focused on the health of organizations serving these communities.
• The 2024 report on the 2023 Small Business Credit Survey was a collaboration among all 12 Reserve banks to share data about the performance, challenges and credit-seeking experiences of more than 6,000 small businesses. While performance indexes remained steady, the firms surveyed held higher amounts of debt than firms surveyed in the years leading up to the COVID-19 pandemic.

7,181
people registered for 26 events led by our Community Development department.

 

In 2024, the St. Louis Fed continued its focus on expanding economic education for all grade levels. Through in-person events, webinars, workshops, videos, and more, our Economic Education team kept teachers informed about the Bank’s free economics and personal finance resources.

• Using the Econ Lowdown Teacher Portal, educators searched for resources by grade level (pre-K through college) and topic—such as trade, price elasticity and demand, and explainers about the Federal Reserve.
• Educators also enrolled in our professional development programs to obtain graduate credits, professional development certificates and digital badges for proficiency in education tools.

5,452
educators benefited from training through 159 workshops, conferences and webinars.

St. Louis Fed Resources in the Classroom

Here’s what some educators familiar with the St. Louis Fed’s free resources had to say about their experiences in 2024:

Hands-on Learning at Our Economy Museum

Another hallmark of the St. Louis Fed’s commitment to education is our free Economy Museum, which celebrated its 10th anniversary in 2024.

With numerous exhibits—including a design-your-own-currency feature, a counterfeit money display, a gallery of historic coins, and much more—the Economy Museum has welcomed more than 100,000 visitors since it opened. The museum remains a popular destination for field trips for students of all ages.

15,220
people visited our Economy Museum—a 22% increase over 2023.