President Joe Biden will meet Tuesday with the chief executives of some of the country’s largest companies in the Oval Office to discuss his $ 1.9 trillion Covid stimulus plan and the outlook for the American economy.
Among those expected to meet with Biden and Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen are Jamie Dimon of JPMorgan, Doug McMillon of Walmart, Sonia Syngal of Gap, Marvin Ellison of Lowe and Tom Donohue of the U.S. Chamber of Commerce.
Although the exact agenda for the afternoon meeting was not immediately available, the White House said the group would look at the “critical need” for Biden’s massive bailout plan that is currently underway in Congress.
The White House did not respond to a request for a meeting agenda.
Still, the star-studded cast of American industry is likely to put pressure on the White House over its plans to make more Covid-19 vaccines available to workers, the size, scope and importance of another round of stimulus checks and as a minimum wage. $ 15 would impact payroll.
Yellen, a former Federal Reserve chairman, emphasized the importance of acting quickly to free the US economy with more fiscal support, even after the $ 900 billion bill was passed by Congress in December. Without that, the labor market recovery could take years, instead of a full recovery next year, she said over the weekend.
While the U.S. economy rebounded strongly in the summer of 2020, that progress has stabilized, if not partially reversed this winter, as the hospitality, travel and food service industries continue to struggle under the impact of the coronavirus pandemic.
The January 2021 job report, published Friday, showed that employers added just 49,000 jobs last month. The drop in the unemployment rate, which fell from 6.7% to 6.3%, came as more people gave up looking for a job.
These are statistics like those that sped up Democrats’ efforts in Congress to approve Biden’s American Rescue Plan using a budget tool known as reconciliation that would allow the party to force the high-value plan on Capitol Hill without Republican Party support.
Although the Biden government has expressed optimism for weeks that its plan could be approved on a bipartisan basis with the 60 votes required without reconciliation, Republican resistance to the size of the project appears to have ended the prospect of a pleasurable solution.
“The President – his first priority is to give relief to the American people,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said on Monday. “Once again, I don’t think the American people are particularly concerned with how direct relief gets to their hands. [reconciliation] it is the process that goes on, which seems likely at this point, the president would certainly support that. “
While the meeting in the Oval Office offers a chance for CEOs to learn more about government goals, it also gives the White House a chance to receive feedback directly from some of the country’s top executives, who may favor some parts of Biden’s earnings and not like others.
Josh Bolten, president and CEO of the influential Business Roundtable, told CNBC last week that business leaders generally do not support conservative efforts to “downsize” the Biden plan.
“What our members are saying is that they are supporting what the Biden government is saying about the urgency of providing the necessary rescue. First, keep the pandemic under control and, second, support the most vulnerable in difficult economic times,” said Bolten on Wednesday. “We are in favor of improving these elements.”
But Bolten emphasized that the BRT – whose members include Dimon, McMillon and Syngal – is concerned about some components of the original plan that could reduce the chances of seeing legislation passed, including raising the minimum wage.
Three days after Bolten’s comments, Biden told CBS that the $ 15 federal minimum wage is unlikely to “survive” in the next Covid-19 aid package, but promised to deliver on the campaign promise at a later date.
More recently, senior House Democrats on Monday night proposed sending $ 1,400 stimulus payments to individual Americans with up to $ 75,000 in annual income. That move rejected an earlier call to tailor benefits to those on lower incomes, backed by conservative Democratic senator Joe Manchin of West Virginia.
Senator Bernie Sanders, an independent from Vermont, told CNN over the weekend that he supports a “strong abyss” for payments so that checks are not allocated to high-income families, but warned against cutting many families.
“But to tell a worker in Vermont or California or anywhere else, that if you’re earning, you know, $ 52,000 a year, you’re too rich to get this help, the full benefit, I think that’s absurd,” he said.
Correction: Sixty votes are required to pass budget legislation in the Senate without reconciliation. An earlier version distorted the requirement.