Housing, which had been a "significant driver of recovery from most recessions" in the U.S. since World War II, is now among industries contributing to the "slower-than-expected rate of expansion," Bernanke said.
Sixty percent of respondents to last week's quarterly Bloomberg Global Poll of 1,031 investors, analysts and traders see the U.S. economy deteriorating, and 50 percent said it will relapse into recession in the next year.
Fed Governor Sarah Bloom Raskin, who's backed Bernanke's easing actions since joining the central bank a year ago, said last week that while the effects of Fed actions have been "somewhat more muted than I might have expected," that shouldn't imply that additional easing "would be unhelpful."
Bernanke said today that "monetary policy can be a powerful tool, but it is not a panacea for the problems currently faced by the U.S. economy."
"Fiscal policy is of critical importance," he said. "But a wide range of other policies -- pertaining to labor markets, housing, trade, taxation, and regulation, for example -- also have important roles to play."