Obama's former top economist says Congress should immediately send $1,000 to every American adult to stimulate coronavirus-stricken economy

• Jason Furman, a top economist during the Obama administration, said Congress should send a one-time $1,000 check to every American adult and an additional $500 per child they have in a stimulus package.
• "We've reached a point where a stimulus package has very little downside and has potential upside," Furman told Business Insider.
• Economists are increasing calls for the government to pass stimulus spending that bolsters consumer demand and provides relief to hourly workers.
• The Bush administration previously sent checks to taxpayers in 2008, though research suggested it had mixed results.
• Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.

One of President Obama's former top economists says the federal government should send a $1,000 check to every adult right away - and make it a key element in a fiscal stimulus package to boost the coronavirus-stricken economy.

Jason Furman, the former chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers during the Obama administration, in a Wall Street Journal op-ed late last week called on Congress to pass a $350 billion legislative package that bolsters social safety-net programs and provides a financial cushion for people hardest hit by the coronavirus outbreak.

"We've reached a point where a stimulus package has very little downside and has potential upside," Furman told Business Insider. "It is absolutely unambiguously the right decision for Congress to make."

Economists and policymakers are increasing calls for the government to inject an adrenaline shot into a coronavirus-battered economy - with a particular eye towards granting relief to workers in the service industry. They're less likely to have paid sick leave, among other benefits.

Gary Cohn, the former director of Trump's National Economic Council, tweeted on Monday that the government should direct aid towards those workers as they "only get paid as they are able to find work."

"As events get canceled and people go out less, they will certainly struggle," Cohn wrote on Twitter.

When it comes to a possible stimulus bill, Furman said that the low cost of borrowing would make it cheap to finance such spending. And he believes the onus is on lawmakers to prevent the virus from posing a bigger economic threat than it already does.

"The risks are that we end up with in addition to a public health emergency, an economic emergency," he said. "Those two could compound each other and lead to a serious recession."

Furman's idea to send a one-time $1,000 check to every American adult - with $500 extra for each child they have - isn't unprecedented. As part of its $168 billion stimulus package in February 2008, the Bush administration sent $600 checks to individual tax filers, $1,200 for couples and an additional $300 a child for families.

Research, though, suggested mixed effects among the 130 million households who received a check in the mail that year. A 2009 paper published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found most people used it to pay off debts or save up instead of increase their level of spending. But it still helped them make ends meet.

That action undertaken by President George W. Bush doesn't appear to be on the table for the Trump administration at the moment. Instead, Trump said on Monday he's calling on Congress to enact a payroll tax cut that would add more cash into workers' paychecks and provide relief to hourly workers weathering the fallout of the coronavirus.

The president also said he's trying to provide a financial lifeline to the airline, hotel, and cruise industries, which are taking a hit as Americans cancel travel plans.

Some economists like Nobel Prize winner Paul Krugman are starting to predict a recession. At this point, Furman said "it's more likely than not" that the US economy spirals into one.

"The US economy has major vulnerabilities right now," Furman said. "It's an ostrich-like strategy to pretend otherwise."