Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said Sunday (Feb. 7) that she expects U.S. employment to return to pre-pandemic levels sometime in 2022, CNN reported.
Speaking on CNN’s “State of the Union” show, Yellen said that without a big relief package — the President Joe Biden administration is pushing a $1.9 trillion measure — recovery would be slow.
Without a big stimulus package, she said: “It would take [until] 2025 in order to get the unemployment rate down to 4 percent again. We would have a long, slow recovery like we had after the financial crisis. But this package is going to really speed recovery.”
After citing analyses by groups endorsing the Biden proposal, Yellen told CNN: “There’s absolutely no reason why we should suffer through a long, slow recovery.”
The U.S. Senate approved Biden’s stimulus package Friday (Feb. 5), setting the stage for negotiations with House leaders to reconcile the two bodies’ versions.
One point to be worked out will be whether high-income households should receive checks as large as those of lower-income households.
Separately, Yellen and Vice President Kamala Harris on Friday told Black business leaders the administration will take steps to make the Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) more effective for minority-owned businesses, the Associated Press (AP) reported.
Referencing higher unemployment among Black Americans than among white Americans during and after the 2008 financial crisis, Yellen said, according to the AP: “That is what economic crises do. They hit people of color harder and longer. … I am worried that the current crisis will do that again” unless action is taken.
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