Business Week – Feb. 24 (Bloomberg) — Federal Reserve Chairman Ben S. Bernanke, in two days of congressional testimony beginning today, will probably face questions on how he plans to end the worst jobs slump since the Great Depression.

Unemployment “will be a big topic” when the Fed chief faces the Senate Banking Committee, Senator Bob Menendez, a New Jersey Democrat and a panel member, said in an interview. “How do we help small- and mid-sized businesses, because they’re the ones who are going to create the jobs? What is he going to do and the Federal Reserve going to do to help grow this economy?”

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Manufacturing jobs will be a focus for Senator Sherrod Brown, an Ohio Democrat and a member of the Senate Banking Committee.

“I want to hear Bernanke talk about how he’s going to rebuild American manufacturing,” Brown told reporters. “I look at this economy as more and more tilted to finance.”

“Finance should be a byproduct of growth,” he said. “That’s not helping our economy, that de-emphasis on manufacturing, emphasis on finance.”

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