There are still people in the United States who are waiting to receive the check for $ 1,400 that was approved by Congress and signed by the president, Joe Biden, on March 11.
However, for some politicians in Washington it is necessary to continue with the payment rounds until the pandemic ends.
"
One more check is not enough,"
53 Democratic representatives said in a letter two months before Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris signed the $ 1.9 trillion bill to address the economic crisis caused by COVID. -19, as reported by Newsweek magazine this Monday.
"Recurring direct payments until the economy recovers will ensure that people can meet their basic needs, provide racially equitable solutions and shorten the duration of the recession," wrote lawmakers led by Minnesota Rep. Ilhan Omar.
This month, 11 other Democratic congressmen joined the initiative, including Vermont Senator Bernie Sanders;
Massachusetts Senator Elizabeth Warren and California Senator Alex Padilla.
For now, Biden has not commented on the matter and the possibility that a new stimulus with direct payments will be approved still seems uncertain.
Despite this, some economists worry that the US economy could overheat if stimulus from Congress and the Federal Reserve - which has lowered interest rates to close to 0% - continues.
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"If we overcome the coronavirus, we will have an economy that is on fire," Harvard University Professor Larry Summers, a former economic adviser to former President Barack Obama, told The Economist in mid-January.
The main threat in this scenario is inflation
.
In theory, if the prices of products and services were to skyrocket, they would end up eating the economic stimulus and most likely would lead the Federal Reserve to raise the interest rate, which would increase the price of money and jeopardize the payment of the debt contracted by the Government to pay the stimuli.
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The result would be an impoverishment of the common citizen and of the Government, which would be faced with fewer options at hand to rebuild the course of the economy.
Although there is no agreement among economists on the probability that the country will face such a scenario in the coming years, there are some signs that the economy is recovering - which raises the alarm among the most pessimistic.
For the first time since the start of the pandemic, claims for unemployment benefits fell below 700,000.
A sign that the labor market is recovering from the crisis, despite the fact that there are still some 19 million people who depend on unemployment assistance.
So far, the Federal Reserve has made it clear that it will not raise interest rates again until the 2% inflation target is exceeded "for a period of time."
Goldman Sachs analysts estimated in mid-March that the economy could grow as much as 8% a year in 2021 -
the highest rate seen in generations
.
In turn, the chairman of the Federal Reserve, Jerome Powell, acknowledged that "the recovery has advanced faster than expected in general terms and seems to be strengthening."
Given the success that the economic recovery is showing, it will become more difficult for Democratic lawmakers to argue that a new round of stimulus is necessary, while Republicans, who opposed the previous aid package, will have less pressure to pass. new one.
Democrats used the budget reconciliation mechanism to pass the $ 1.9 trillion aid package, which can only be done once in the fiscal year.
This means that they would necessarily need Republican support when they seem least likely to get it.
With information from
Newsweek
,
Forbes
,
The Economist
and
The New York Times
.