Peter R. Orszag, Columnist

The U.S. Economy Will Need Stimulus Well Beyond July

It’s too soon to count on consumer demand to support the economy.

June 9, 2020 at 5:30 AM EDT

Peter R. Orszag is a former Bloomberg Opinion columnist. The director of the Office of Management and Budget from 2009 to 2010 and director of the Congressional Budget Office from 2007 to 2008, he is the chief executive officer of financial advisory at Lazard.

Some jobs are back, but what about consumer demand?
Photographer: Sean Rayford/Getty Images

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In the days before GPS was commercially available, I decided to hike Mount Jackson in New Hampshire. The guidebook said Tisdale Spring was close to the summit, so when I passed a small spring after a couple hours, I thought the hard part was almost over. After a while of heightened expectation, however, I passed another spring — and that process repeated itself several times before I reached the real Tisdale Spring and thereafter the summit.

The U.S. employment report released Friday, initially heralded as the end of the Covid-19 challenge, seems much more likely to be the economic equivalent of that first, misleading spring on Mount Jackson.

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