Fed expands muni-debt program to cover “smaller” cities, counties (at least 500,000 population for counties and 250,000 for cities)

The Federal Reserve expanded the scope and duration of the Municipal Liquidity Facility, a $500 billion emergency lending program aimed at providing short-term credit to state and local governments as they endure the economic fallout from the coronavirus pandemic.
The U.S. central bank lowered the population thresholds under which counties and cities would be eligible to sell short-term debt to the facility. The new levels are at least 500,000 for counties and 250,000 for cities, down from 2 million and 1 million.
“The new population thresholds allow substantially more entities to borrow directly from the MLF than the initial plan announced on April 9,” the Fed said in a statement Monday.
(Read more: The Bond Buyer)