(Reuters) – A top U.S. central banker on Wednesday again urged more fiscal support from Congress to help heal the economy even as Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said Republicans and Democrats were still “very very far apart” on how much to spend.
“We need fiscal agents to offer fiscal support to the parts of the economy that have yet to recover, to the millions of Americans who are still sidelined and wondering how they are going to pay their bills,” San Francisco Federal Reserve President Mary Daly told CNBC on Wednesday. “Whether it happens next week or next month is important to those American households, but also really important to shoring up the economy so that we can fully reengage and get the coronavirus behind us.”
Regarding the labor market, she said, “we are in a very big hole, a very big ditch,” adding that even if job growth continues as it has it would still take two to three years to fully recoup losses.
(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
