Fed vows to support US economy's 'long road' to recovery after dire 2020

“Twenty-two, 24 million people - somehow as a country we have to get them back to work," Powell said via video link after the end of the Fed's latest two-day policy meeting. "They did not do anything wrong. This was a natural disaster."

WASHINGTON: The U.S. Federal Reserve on Wednesday signaled it plans years of extraordinary support for an economy facing a torturous slog back from the coronavirus pandemic, with policymakers projecting the economy to shrink 6.5% in 2020 and the unemployment rate to be 9.3% at year's end.

In the first economic projections of the pandemic era, U.S. central bank policymakers put into numbers what has been an emerging narrative: that the shutdowns, restrictions and other measures used to battle a health crisis will echo through the economy for years to come rather than be quickly reversed as commerce reopens.