Janet Yellen says US economy is unfair to Black Americans in MLK Day speech

‘There is still much more work Treasury needs to do to narrow the racial wealth divide,’ said Yellen. Photograph: Kevin Lamarque/Reuters

The treasury secretary, Janet Yellen, marked Martin Luther King Day with a speech acknowledging that the US economy “has never worked fairly for Black Americans or, really, for any American of color”.

Interpreting the late civil rights leader’s I Have a Dream speech, Yellen said: “Dr King knew that economic injustice was bound up in the larger injustice he fought against.”