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President Biden and his top economic aides brushed aside criticism from Republicans on Friday about the administration’s $1.9 trillion stimulus package and vowed to forge ahead with the proposal, saying the bill was critical for a flagging economic recovery and overwhelmingly popular with voters, the New York Times reported. The comments came as Biden was briefed by aides on the need for more fiscal help and the state of the economy, and as new analysis from the Brookings Institution suggested the Biden proposal, if enacted, would vault the economy above its prepandemic path by the second half of this year. A team of top economic officials, including Treasury Secretary Janet L. Yellen, met with Mr. Biden and Vice President Kamala Harris in the Oval Office on Friday to underscore the challenges facing an economy that recorded decelerating growth at the end of last year. They were joined by Brian Deese, the director of the National Economic Council, and Jared Bernstein and Heather Boushey of the Council of Economic Advisers. “The price of doing nothing is much higher than the price of doing something and doing something big,” Yellen said before the briefing. “We need to act now. The benefits of acting now and acting big will far outweigh the costs in the long run.”

U.S. consumer spending fell for a second straight month in December amid renewed business restrictions to slow the spread of COVID-19 and a temporary expiration of government-funded benefits for millions of unemployed Americans, Reuters reported. The report from the Commerce Department on Friday also showed inflation steadily rising last month. Consumer spending, which accounts for more than two-thirds of U.S. economic activity, slipped 0.2% last month as outlays at restaurants declined. Spending at hospitals also fell, likely as patients stayed away in fear of contracting the coronavirus. Households also cut back spending on recreation. Consumer spending tumbled 0.7% in November. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast spending would fall 0.4% in December.

U.S. consumer spending fell 0.2% in December, though a 0.6% rise in household incomes could prime the economy for growth this year, the Wall Street Journal reported. Household spending fell for the second straight month, the Commerce Department said Friday. Consumers cut spending broadly on goods and services. Incomes, meanwhile, rose for the first time in three months, in part because of government aid programs, such as enhanced unemployment benefits, that kicked in at the end of the year. The increase in income has given households money to spend, but they have had limited ways to spend it. The savings rate rose to 13.7%, far higher than the pre-pandemic level. While government aid programs, a booming stock market and rising home values have put households on solid footing financially, consumers haven’t been able or willing to dine out, go to concerts or on vacation. Late last year, many state and local governments forced businesses to shut down again or scale back operations to combat another wave of the coronavirus. Many households are still suffering. The jobless rate of 6.7% in December is far higher than the February level of 3.5%. Many businesses have closed. But households collectively saved $1.4 trillion in the first nine months of last year, about twice as much as what they saved in the same period a year earlier, according to Berenberg Economics. Most received one-time cash payments of $1,200 last year as part of a broad federal package to help them weather the economic downturn. Millions of unemployed workers also received enhanced unemployment benefits—$600 a week at one point, on top of their normal jobless compensation.

New York’s apartment investors are suddenly waist-deep in distress. By December, they were behind on $395 million of debt backed by mortgage bonds, almost 150 times the level a year earlier, according to Trepp data on commercial mortgage-backed securities, Bloomberg News reported. Tenants in rent-stabilized units owe at least $1 billion in rent and wealthier ones are fleeing the city, leaving behind vacancies and pushing newly-built luxury towers into foreclosure. For years, as crime dwindled and rent climbed in New York, investors gobbled up apartment buildings. But with the city’s economy and culture crushed by COVID-19, mounting job losses have derailed the gentrification boom and put financial pressure on landlords. “The people who specialize in mortgage workouts are the busiest people in New York real estate,” said Barry Hersh, a clinical associate professor of real estate at New York University. The developers who are in the most trouble pushed hard into Harlem and the Brooklyn hipster hubs of Crown Heights, Flatbush and Bushwick, squeezing out working-class residents by building new expensive units. Now, they’re grappling with eviction bans and new tenant protections as rent falls across New York.

President Biden will issue an executive order on Friday aimed at steering additional federal aid to families struggling to afford food amid the pandemic and at helping workers stay safe on the job, the New York Times reported. Biden, who has vowed to use the power of the presidency to help mitigate economic fallout from the pandemic, will also direct the Treasury Department to find ways to deliver stimulus checks to millions of eligible Americans who have not yet received the funds. The president also plans to sign a second executive order that will lay the groundwork for the federal government to institute a $15 an hour minimum wage for its employees and contract workers, while making it easier for federal workers to bargain collectively for better pay and benefits. Biden has issued a series of economic orders in his first days in the White House, which his aides have cast as emergency relief for Americans struggling in the COVID economy. He has also called on Congress to approve a $1.9 trillion economic rescue package in the coming weeks.

On his first day in office, President Biden signed a range of executive actions including two that will affect the financial lives of millions of Americans. One directs the Education Department to extend the pause on federal student loan payments, and the other directs the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention to extend the federal eviction moratorium, the Wall Street Journal reported. Both measures were put in place last year in response to economic hardships caused by the COVID-19 pandemic. The executive order for federal student loans directs the Education Department to extend the pause on principal payments and interest accrual for direct federal loans until at least Sept. 30, 2021. Loan repayments and interest accrual has been paused for borrowers with federal student loans since March 13, 2020. Collection on defaulted loans has been suspended as well. More than 22 million borrowers with direct federal student loans paused payments during this period, according to data analyzed by Mark Kantrowitz, publisher and vice president of research at savingforcollege.com. Many borrowers were hoping for an executive order from President Biden that would forgive some of their debt. During his campaign, Mr. Biden proposed forgiving $10,000 in debt for every American with federal student loans. In recent days, Mr. Biden and his transition team said he was unlikely to use executive action for loan forgiveness.

New York City apartment tenants are more than $1 billion in debt from missed rent payments during the coronavirus pandemic, according to a new survey measuring the depth of the rent crisis brought on by COVID-19, the Wall Street Journal reported. The debt figure is the most recent indicator that unemployment benefits and federal stimulus packages have so far been inadequate to alleviate the growing financial burden of missed rent payments across thousands of city households. Both landlord and tenant advocacy groups have lobbied heavily for more government rental assistance during the pandemic. The survey, conducted by the Community Housing Improvement Program, a landlord trade group, focused on New York buildings subject to the city’s rent-regulation laws. These apartments account for about half of the city’s total rental apartments. Tallying responses from landlords, the group estimated that as many as 185,000 households living in these apartments are more than two months behind on rent, with an average debt of more than $6,000. Jay Martin, executive director of CHIP, said rent debt from the rest of New York’s apartment inventory is probably the same or greater, meaning the total debt New York City renters are carrying is likely more than $2 billion. The COVID-19 relief package passed by Congress in December included $1.3 billion in pandemic rental assistance for New York state. It is still unclear how much of that will be made available for New York City, however, or how difficult it will be for tenants to meet eligibility requirements for the funds. State and city housing agencies are expected to roll out their distribution plans for the assistance in the coming weeks.