After the Labor Department reported on Friday a staggering 14.7% unemployment rate in April, White House senior economic adviser Kevin Hassett painted an even bleaker picture of the country’s future economic woes amid the COVID-19 pandemic.
During Hassett’s interview on CNN, anchor Poppy Harlow brought up the fact that the 14.7% figure doesn’t even cover the full scope of unemployment last month given that the U-6 figure, which includes Americans currently not looking for work, is actually 22.8%.
The White House adviser agreed with her assessment, then put forth a grim prediction of more job losses in May.
“That 22% will probably be 25% in the next report,” he told Harlow. “And hopefully from there it will start to head back in the right direction.”
20.5 million jobs were lost in April, according to the Labor Department, which also noted in its report that “the highest rate and the largest over-the-month increase in the history of the series” dating back to 1948.
Watch Hassett below:
WH senior economic adviser says unemployment rate will "probably be 25% in the next report." pic.twitter.com/LQnGhdfQUU
— TPM Livewire (@TPMLiveWire) May 8, 2020
No flies on him.
I bet he even has his résumé polished and ready to go.
Sure, it’s going to get worse. But then on May 15th it’s going down to zero.
Isn’t this the same guy who is predicting that all of the COVID cases will disappear by next week, or deaths will go to zero? Even if he’s not, it’s likely he’s underestimating what is going to happen…sure, some people are going back to jobs this month, but when infections start to spike up in the red states things will close back up, tighter and for longer than they would have if we did this properly. The only hope for the economy is that the blue states doing things right are able to start some economic movement again.
It’s still just amazing how badly the Trump administration and Republicans have screwed this up, and how they are trying to cover for that by forcing people to go out and mingle, and maybe get sick. It’s the opposite of what should have been done, and it’s made the crisis worse and will continue to do so for many months.
He’d better. Looks like he may have told the truth on TV. He’ll be out on his ass by 6
Two economists were sitting at a nudist colony. The one said, “Have you read Marx?” The other says, “It’s these wicker chairs.”