(Bloomberg) -- It’s “incredibly important” the U.S. deliver another round of fiscal policy support to aid the economy as it weathers the coronavirus pandemic, said Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago President Charles Evans.
“Fiscal policy has been unbelievably important in supporting the economy during the downturn that we’ve been experiencing,” Evans said in an interview Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation.”
“That continues to be important because we’ve not got control over the virus spread. I think that public confidence is really important, and another support package is really incredibly important,” he said.
President Donald Trump on Saturday took executive actions on relief to work around a Congressional impasse on additional fiscal support, though the measures fall well short of the aid that Democrats say is needed amid a stalling U.S. economic recovery and with millions of Americans still out of work.
Democrats and Republicans are trillions of dollars apart on overall spending and on key issues, including on aid to state and local governments and the amount of supplementary unemployment benefits that expired at the end of last month.
Fed officials have cut interest rates to nearly zero and signaled they would keep them there at least through 2022 as they try to get the economy back on track. High frequency signals on activity show an economic rebound flattening out, though the latest monthly reading on the labor market was better than expected.
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