Lawmakers should take these steps to help US workers during pandemic, economist tells Rising

Economist Pavlina Tcherneva said Monday that lawmakers should institute a federal jobs program to help U.S. workers recover from the coronavirus pandemic. 

Tcherneva told Hill.TV’s “Rising” that the federal government is responsible for the struggling economy, and without its help, “the incentives” to go back to work “will not be there, and firms will fold.”

“So somebody has to pick up the responsibility to create employment and investment,” she said. “And that will need to be the federal government to be able to transition folks to safe and stable employment when the economy has gotten ahold of the virus.” 

Tcherneva called for huge infrastructure investments, as well as an extension for expanded federal unemployment payments, which expired last week, to help alleviate economic pressure for the millions of Americans who have found themselves unemployed.  

“I would prefer to see very large infrastructure investments programs,” she said. “Programs very much akin to the New Deal to transition us back to normalcy. Programs that guarantee employment to folks who need it.”

“But there is going to be a light at the end of the tunnel, and we don’t have a plan how to emerge out of this pandemic without some plan for job creation, and I think the fastest way to do it is for the government to create the jobs directly,” she added.