Janet Yellen and Jared Bernstein: The Senate Is on Vacation While Americans Starve

Janet Yellen is a Distinguished Fellow in Residence with the Economic Studies Program at the Brookings Institution, a former Chair of the Federal Reserve Board, and member of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget. She recently wrote an op-ed for The New York Times with Center on Budget and Policy Priorities Senior Fellow Jared Bernstein, an excerpt of which is below:

It became clear this summer that public health measures across much of the country were relaxed too soon and without proper medical safeguards against the coronavirus. So now, once again, the commerce that Americans rely upon is retrenching. About 80 percent of Americans live in places that are pausing or dialing back reopening.

Yet the Senate left for its August recess without a compromise plan on a coronavirus relief bill for states, cities, the unemployed, businesses and the public health system. If senators still fail to resolve stalled negotiations when they return after Labor Day, millions of needy Americans will suffer — and the overall economy could degrade from its current slow rebound in growth to no growth at all.

Read the entire piece here.

“My Views” are works published by members or staff of the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget, but they do not necessarily reflect the views of all members or staff of the Committee.