The Omicron variant will weigh on US economic growth in the months to come, but will not derail it, US Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen said on Wednesday before the country’s mayors gathered in the federal capital Washington.
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“Omicron presents a challenge and will likely impact some of the data in the months to come, but I am confident it will not derail what has been one of the strongest periods of economic growth in a century” , Janet Yellen will say on Wednesday, during her speech, published earlier in the morning.
“None of this was guaranteed. I think it’s important that we recognize that,” said the minister.
The Omicron variant of Covid-19, which caused the cases of contamination to jump, multiplied the cases of quarantines of infected people or contact cases, unable to come to work. Airlines, for example, have canceled thousands of flights since Christmas for lack of sufficient manpower.
Consequently, economic growth is expected to slow in the 1st quarter of 2022, economists anticipate.
But Ms. Yellen assured that the American Rescue Plan (ARP), the rescue plan adopted in March 2021 under the impetus of a Joe Biden then just arrived at the White House, “acted like a vaccine for the American economy, protecting our recovery from the possibility of new variants”.
“The protection was not comprehensive, but it was very strong – and it prevented communities from suffering the most severe economic effects of Omicron and Delta,” she said, recalling that $350 billion had then been allocated to local authorities.
Indeed, she continued, “the first year of the pandemic decimated community budgets, forcing states and communities to lay off or furlough 1.3 million workers. These were the employees that we were rightly calling ‘essentials’ – teachers, relief workers, public health officials.”
But, according to her, thanks to this money, “when Omicron began to spread through our cities, he did not find them damaged and broken”, but “in a much better position to cope”.