PHOTO PHOTO: Chicago Federal Reserve Bank President Charles Evans Speaks at the Global Interdependence Center Members’ Delegation Event in Mexico City, Mexico, February 27, 2020. REUTERS / Edgard Garrido / File Photo
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The United States would have to implement another support package to ensure workers can stay home safely while the new coronavirus continues to spread, Chicago Fed President Charles Evans said in an interview with CBS News on Sunday.
Evans said it was up to U.S. lawmakers to protect small businesses and vulnerable communities with measures that would allow them to continue paying for their hair and food purchases as long as the virus was not under control.
“I think public confidence is really important and another support package is really incredibly important,” Evans said on CBS ‘Face the Nation program.
He also said the most pessimistic economic projections were involved in not supporting state and local governments, which in turn would have to implement drastic cuts to support some of the federal aid measures.
Evans’ remarks come after U.S. lawmakers, after weeks of negotiations, reached an agreement on a second aid package, leaving tens of millions of unemployed Americans without direct federal support.
US House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin on Sunday said they were open to resuming COVID-19 aid talks.
U.S. President Donald Trump on Saturday tried to take matters into his own hands, signing executive orders and memoranda focusing on unemployment benefits, layoffs, student loans and payroll taxes. Some of the orders raised questions about the legitimacy of the constitutional power of Congress to prevent taxation and taxation.
Under Trump’s plan, unemployment benefits would have to be funded in part by U.S. states, which have already struggled to pay benefits amid a wave of unemployment that has not been seen since the Great Depression.
Report by Tina Bellon in New York; Edited by Sam Holmes
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