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Three Ideas To Fight The Recession
The Indicator NPR hide caption
The Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act will funnel $2.2 trillion to individuals and businesses, big and small. It will include an extra $600 a week to people who lose their jobs on top of their regular unemployment benefits. It will also include recovery rebates, which are one-time payments of twelve hundred dollars to adults who make up to seventy-five thousand dollars a year.
The CARES Act is a lot of money. But there's no way to know whether it will be enough. Many economists say there's a good chance that the economic damage from the pandemic will be much worse than members of Congress anticipated when they started legislating the bill. Which means there's likely to be a lot more work for policymakers to do.
Economists have plenty of ideas that policymakers could adopt to help make things work. Today, we're looking at three ideas, to help individuals and small businesses. For more details on each idea, see the links below to the work of the economists who recommended them:
--Claudia Sahm's home page, Washington Center for Equitable Growth
--"Direct stimulus payments to individuals", by Claudia Sahm
--Lisa Cook's Twitter thread on mobile money
--Adam Ozimek (with John Lettieri): "How to Rescue Main Street From Coronavirus Before It's Too Late"
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