The Last Mile for Stimulus

Tom Barkin

Speech from Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond

Abstract: In the past year or so, Congress has passed the largest stimulus bill in American history — twice. Almost $6 trillion has been allocated in response to COVID-19 to date, and at least $3.7 trillion has been disbursed or committed. These have been critical investments to help small businesses and unemployed workers get to the other side of this crisis. Despite this funding, we still hear from many people across our district that they are struggling to pay the rent, feed their families, and stay connected to work and school — even though these are areas Congress has targeted. For example, $47 billion has been allocated specifically for emergency rental assistance, yet the Philadelphia Fed estimates that the 1.8 million renter households in arrears still owe $11 billion in rent.1 And roughly $70 billion has been directed toward nutrition assistance, but 45 million people (including 15 million children) were projected to face food insecurity in 2020.

Keywords: Fiscal Policy; Small Business (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021-04-16
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