Amazon CEO Andy Jassy on Tuesday urged Congress to raise the nation’s debt ceiling, warning that a failure to address the issue could result in harm to consumer confidence.
“If you look at our debt commitments and look at where the debt limit is, it’s a little worrisome,” Jassy told TechCheck co-host Jon Fortt in an interview aired Tuesday morning.
“I think it scares consumer confidence and confidence in American companies and possible credit ratings if we don’t make sure we raise that debt limit,” Jassy added.
The debt ceiling is a limit set by Congress on how much the government can borrow to pay off its debts. Once the limit is reached, lawmakers must raise or suspend the ceiling before the Treasury Department can issue more debt.
A two-year suspension of the approved debt limit in 2019 expired in late July. In August, the Treasury Department invoked “extraordinary measures” to save cash.
Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen warned last week that the United States has some point in October before the department exhausts its efforts to prevent what would be a historic breach of U.S. debt.
Congress is expected to address the issue this week after returning from its August break.
“I know it will be debated in Washington, but I hope we take care of it sooner rather than later in Congress,” Jassy said.
The debt ceiling issue comes after the U.S. government “had to spend at unprecedented levels to protect our citizens” amid the coronavirus pandemic, Jassy said.
Post-pandemic world
Jassy acknowledged that Amazon took on a more important role for many Americans during the Covid-19 closures. Amazon executives realized that “any role Amazon has in the world” would increase due to the pandemic, as many physical stores remained closed, Jassy said.
“We feel like we’ve probably experienced two or three years of growth in 18 months,” Jassy said. “You probably wouldn’t be able to responsibly plan a pandemic or the amount of capacity you need.”
Jassy said he hopes e-commerce will continue to claim a growing share of overall retail sales.
Amazon and other tech giants were among the first companies to demand that their employees start working from home in early 2020. The evolutionary nature of the pandemic has made it difficult to predict when employees will be brought back to the office, said Jassy.
Amazon last month pushed back its plans to return to work in January 2022, while other companies, such as Microsoft, have indefinitely postponed their office reopening.
Employees who will return to the office depend on the role and function of the job, Jassy said. For example, while engineers may be better suited to work on their own effectively, some jobs require collaboration, he said.
“We have a belief that we will have a lot of people in the offices,” Jassy said. “And like I said, I don’t know if it will be every day. I think people will have a significant amount over time as they get more comfortable going back to work.”