Daily Times

The US recession is here. How long it will last will depend on the course of a viral pandemic that could still kill hundreds of thousands of Americans, and has most of the country under lockdowns aimed at slowing the infection’s spread.

But how quickly the world’s biggest economy will recover will depend on how much aid the government gives it, and how effectively it can be used to stem what are already millions of job losses, Fed officials said on Thursday.

“One thing we know from 2008, when you had millions and millions and millions of Americans losing their jobs, it took more than a decade to put the labor market back together,” Minneapolis Federal Reserve Bank President Neel Kashkari said in a webcast townhall event. “I’m really pleased that a lot of the action by the federal government and the state governments has been focused on trying to keep workers in their jobs.”

Kashkari was referring to the brand-new $350 billion Paycheck Protection Program, due to be rolled out on Friday to provide small businesses with grants to keep their workers on the payroll.

The program is a key part of the $2.2 trillion coronavirus rescue package passed by Congress last week.