Difficult to Say When the Economy Will Rebound But It ‘can be robust’, Powell

As per Jerome Powell, Chairman of Fed Reserve, the recovery of the United States Economy “can be robust” once the virus is contained despite the massive downfall. He also insisted that the Feds are doing everything possible to cushion the hurt economy.

“At the Fed, we are doing all we can to help shepherd the economy through this difficult time,” he said on Tuesday. “When the spread of the virus is under control, businesses will reopen, and people will come back to work. There is every reason to believe that the economic rebound when it comes, can be robust.”

Powell also said the timeline of such a rebound is almost impossible to provide with utmost certainty as the coronavirus is a contagious disease and there is no specific time when the effects will be nullified.

“When the virus does run its course and it’s safe to go back to work and it’s safe for businesses to open, then we would expect there to be a fairly quick rebound,” he said.

“I think most people expect that to happen in the second half of this year after the second quarter. To try to be precise about where that will be, I don’t think that would be appropriate.”

Regardless, Powell claimed that the United States has been growing rapidly as an economy before the various actions were taken due to the coronavirus threat that led to the shutdown of many businesses.

“We entered this turbulent period on a strong economic footing, and that should help support the recovery,” he said. “In the meantime, we are using our tools to help build a bridge from the solid economic foundation on which we entered this crisis to a position of regained economic strength on the other side.”

He said the Feds are not planning to lift the interest rates form zero any sooner and will continue to the financial institutions in providing liquidity in the form of loans.

“We have also committed to keeping rates at this low level until we are confident that the economy has weathered the storm and is on track to achieve our maximum-employment and price-stability goals,” he said.

Another instance of the massive tumble of the US economy was unveiled on Thursday when a record number of people claimed to be jobless this week that stood at 6.6 million.