The United States government recorded a budget deficit of $163 billion in January, an unprecedented high level on a monthly basis, and a $130 billion jump from the deficit in the same period in 2020, after a new package of direct payments was distributed to individuals as revealed by the US Treasury Department.
Revenue rose 3 percent in January compared to the same period a year earlier, to $385 billion, while spending increased by 35 percent to $547 billion. Both revenue and spending recorded unprecedented heights in January.
For the first four months of the fiscal year 2021, the deficit increased 89 percent to $736 billion, as revenues rose by 1 percent to $1.19 trillion, and spending jumped 23 percent to $1.92 trillion, noting that revenues, spending and the deficit recorded an unprecedented rise since the beginning of the year.
For his part, Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell declared that the US economy is "very far" from reaching a solid job market, adding that the experience of previous recessions indicates that the recovery may take years.
He said that reforming what the epidemic crisis has caused on the labor market will require a wide range of government policies, in addition to a large-scale vaccination campaign to control the outbreak of the Coronavirus.
Source (Al-Araby Al-Jadeed Newspaper, Edited)
