Claudia Sahm's Sahm Rule for direct payments when unemplo...

Claudia Sahm's Sahm Rule for direct payments when unemployment rises is getting more airplay right now���and the unemployment rate is now likely to rise over the next six months. I first saw this proposal in a novel Robert Heinlein published in 1947, Beyond This Horizon about life in a future near utopia: Jeanna Smialek: ���Now Is the Time���: A Fed Official Urges Congress to Plan for Recessions https://www.nytimes.com/2020/02/21/business/economy/fed-rate-recession-congress-stimulus.html: 'One such proposal is the so-called Sahm Rule. Created by Claudia Sahm, a former Fed economist, it would use a pronounced jump in the unemployment rate to trigger a fiscal response such as stimulus payments to households. Ms. Brainard���s colleague Mary C. Daly, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, has also made a case for government spending policies that kick in immediately. Central bankers ���face greater uncertainty about the impact of our tools and their ability to achieve our goals,��� she said in a speech this month. ���Fiscal policy will need to play a larger role in smoothing through economic shocks,��� and ���expanding the array of automatic stabilizers that form part of the social safety net can help mitigate the depth and duration of economic downturns.���...

#noted #2020-02-28