US stimulus package a start but more needed: analysts

Published Sun, Apr 5, 2020 · 09:50 PM

THE US$2 trillion stimulus package and unbounded US Federal Reserve monetary support looked big until weighed against last week's death toll and jobless data.

US stocks gave back some of their recent gains and tested bear-market lows last week, as the Covid-19 pandemic and joblessness spread in the US at a shocking rate. With hundreds of people dying by the day, the outbreak in New York City, the epicentre of the outbreak in the US, has reached worst-case scenario proportions.

Other major urban centers, including New Orleans and Miami, are seeing frighteningly similar trends.

Last Thursday saw the largest ever weekly unemployment applications and Friday saw the biggest fall in US worker payrolls since the…