Fed chief Powell sees road to recovery, warns on 'false start'
SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - The U.S. economy could be headed "fairly quickly" toward recovery if people stay home, government gets aid to businesses and households, and public health officials create a national plan to restart the economy, Federal Reserve Chair Jerome Powell said on Thursday.
"We need to have a plan, nationally, for reopening the economy," Powell said in an online event hosted by the Brookings Institution. "While we all want it to happen as quickly as possible, we all want to avoid a false start, where we partially reopen and that results in a spike in coronavirus cases and then we have to go back again to square one."
Powell said monetary policy is "just in the right place," and the U.S. central bank is prepared to adjust or add to its broad emergency lending programs as needed and to keep them going until it is confident the recovery is on track.
(Reporting by Ann Saphir; Editing by Paul Simao)
