I would like to thank Chiara Scotti for her assistance in preparing these remarks. 1  -2support—including expanded unemployment benefits and the Small Business Administration’s Paycheck Protection Program (PPP)—as well as low interest rates and efforts by the Federal Reserve to sustain the flow of credit to households and firms.
In the labor market, about half of the 22 million jobs that were lost in the spring have been restored, and the unemployment rate has fallen since April by nearly 7 percentage points to 7.9 percent as of September.