The economic peril from the coronavirus is growing more stark every day, and the $2 trillion stimulus may not deliver a rescue in time for the many small businesses and families who lack the cash to stay afloat for more than a week or two, Bloomberg News reported. Many businesses shut their doors either for a lack of customers or on orders from state or local governments as emergency declarations began rolling across the country in mid-March,. Yet it could be weeks more before the business loans, bigger unemployment checks and direct payments to individuals from the stimulus plan flow into the economy. A new Brookings report estimates that at least 48 million Americans will have to wait weeks or months longer than others for their stimulus checks because they didn’t provide the government with direct-deposit account numbers. That prospect “given the economic tsunami of COVID will be devastating,” according to the report’s author, Aaron Klein.
