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\n \n Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen on Friday warned of the widespread global effects that could be felt if the federal government exhausts extraordinary measures<\/a> and fails to raise the debt ceiling, telling CNN\u2019s Christiane Amanpour about the ways everyday Americans could face<\/a> stark consequences.\n <\/p>\n \n Yellen\u2019s warning comes after the United States on Thursday hit its $31.4 trillion debt limit set by Congress, forcing the Treasury Department to start taking extraordinary measures<\/a> to keep the government paying its bills.\n <\/p>\n \n While those newly deployed extraordinary measures are largely behind-the-scenes accounting maneuvers, Yellen told Amanpour that \u201cthe actual date at which we would no longer be able to use these measures is quite uncertain, but it could conceivably come as early as early June.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n Speaking exclusively to CNN from Senegal, Yellen said that after the measures are exhausted,<\/a> the US could experience at a minimum downgrading of its debt as a result of Congress failing to raise the debt ceiling. The effects of the federal government failing to make payments, she argued, could be as broad as a \u201cglobal financial crisis.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIf that happened, our borrowing costs would increase and every American would see that their borrowing costs would increase as well,\u201d Yellen said. \u201cOn top of that, a failure to make payments that are due, whether it\u2019s the bondholders or to Social Security recipients or to our military, would undoubtedly cause a recession in the US economy and could cause a global financial crisis.\u201d\n <\/p>\n \n \u201cIt would certainly undermine the role of the dollar as a reserve currency that is used in transactions all over the world. And Americans \u2013 many people would lose their jobs and certainly their borrowing costs would rise,\u201d she continued.\n <\/p>\n
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