WASHINGTON — Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen is pushing back against Republican criticism of Democrats’ major response package to the coronavirus pandemic, saying in an election year that the current state of the U.S. “affirms” the steps taken in 2021 to “our economy get back on track’.
With inflation falling, unemployment at 3.7% and the US apparently defying predictions of a recession, Yellen is said to defend the $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan in remarks delivered Wednesday to a US Conference of Mayors in Washington DC will be presented.
The stimulus package, which was passed into law without a Republican vote, is regularly cited by Republicans as the cause of two years of rising price increases that have hit millions of American households.
‘Many had argued that this rescue plan was unnecessary. But I believe seeing where we are today validates the approach we have taken,” Yellen said in the prepared remarks. “President Biden and I believed the most dangerous risk was going too small.”
As President Joe Biden seeks re-election, he is trying to convince voters gloomy about the economy that inflation is under control and the economy is strong.
About 76% of U.S. adults surveyed in December by the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research said they want the government to act on issues related to the economy this year, nearly as many as 75% who said that at this point in the report. 2022.
About 85% of Republicans and 65% of Democrats listed the economy as a top issue.
An October AP-NORC poll found that about three-quarters of Americans described the country’s economy as poor.
At the mayors’ conference, Yellen planned to say that the Biden administration’s COVID-19 spending would benefit states and local governments — and that if the administration’s response had been smaller, the U.S. economy could be worse off are.
“Wages have risen and wage increases have been widely shared, including by younger and less educated workers,” Yellen said in her prepared remarks, adding that the U.S. had recovered “faster than our peers around the world.”
A top Federal Reserve official, Christopher Waller, said Tuesday that he is increasingly confident that inflation will continue to fall to the Fed’s target level of 2% this year.
Waller said inflation is slowing even as growth and workforce levels remain solid, a combination he called “about as good as it gets.”
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