Confidence in the Fed chair spikes to the highest since 2005 amid Jerome Powell's unprecedented actions to fight coronavirus

• Fifty-eight percent of Americans said that they have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that Powell will do or recommend the right thing for the economy, according to an April 1-14 Gallup Poll released Thursday.
• It's the highest reading a Fed chair has had since Alan Greenspan's 56% confidence rating in 2005.
• The rating is also the highest Powell has received in his two years as Fed chair. It shows confidence in him as grown amid the Fed's actions to combat economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
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People are feeling most confident in the actions of state leaders and the Federal Reserve chairman Jerome Powell amid the coronavirus pandemic that has wreaked havoc on the US economy.

As many as 58% of Americans said that they have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that Powell will do or recommend the right thing for the economy, according to an April 1-14 Gallup Poll released Thursday. It's the highest reading a Fed chair has had since Alan Greenspan's 56% confidence rating in 2005.

The poll also showed that people feel that local government leaders are doing the best local government — 68% of respondents said they have a great deal or a fair amount of confidence that the governor in their state will do or recommend the right thing for the economy.

Gallup's poll comes amid economic turmoil stemming from the coronavirus pandemic, which has led to most of the US being under lockdown to curb the spread of COVID-19, the illness caused by the virus. As many as 26 million Americans have lost jobs and filed for unemployment insurance in just five weeks, and a slew of other economic indicators are flashing red — retail sales, industrial production, and consumer confidence have tanked.

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Confidence in Powell has grown amid the crisis, according to the poll. His latest rating is much higher than the 45% and 50% figures Gallup found in his first two years in the chairman role.

The Federal Reserve has taken extreme measures to boost the US economy during the coronavirus outbreak, going beyond its 2008 Great Recession playbook. The central bank has devoted trillions of dollars to relief programs, and Powell has said it will do whatever it takes to support the economy.

Powell's rating beat out those of President Donald Trump and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin, who got 47% and 51%, respectively. Republican leaders in Congress got 47%, slightly beating Democratic leaders who got 46%.