Yellen’s latest guidance: ‘Highly likely’ Treasury will be unable to cover debts in early June
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen has just released a new letter to congressional leaders with updated guidance on the earliest date that the U.S. could be at serious risk of a debt default.
The date remains June 1 in the new letter, the same date it’s been since the start of May. But the new message contains two key differences from a very similar letter Yellen penned on May 15.
“With an additional week of information now available, I am writing to note that we estimate that it is highly likely that Treasury will no longer be able to satisfy all of the government’s obligations if Congress has not acted to raise or suspend the debt limit by earlyJune, and potentially as early as June 1,” writes Yellen.
The phrase “highly likely” is new. Last week Yellen wrote that it was merely “likely.”
Yellen also removed an entire sentence from last week’s letter that said emergency measures Treasury is currently taking could help to push that June deadline out.
“The actual date Treasury exhausts extraordinary measures could be a number of days or weeks later than these estimates,” read Yellen’s May 15 letter to congressional leaders.
The new letter comes as President Joe Biden is about to meet face to face with House Speaker Kevin McCarthy, part of an increasingly urgent effort to reach a bipartisan compromise deal.
— Christina Wilkie
Stock futures are up slightly
Stock futures were modestly higher shortly after 6 p.m. ET.
Futures tied to the Dow, S&P 500 and Nasdaq 100 were all up 0.1%.
— Alex Harring
