Ahmedabad: Even though America lost 22.1 million jobs in April and May under lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, President Donald Trump has claimed that the US economy is doing “amazingly’ well.”
He said this on Saturday while responding to a question on the US economy, which has been battered by the pandemic.
The unemployment rate in the US for April was 14.7 percent, the highest since 1948.
Trump said “the numbers that we are doing are record-setting numbers. We have record-setting job numbers and as you know, retail sales numbers that just came out. The US economy is doing very, very well.”
In the USA, some businesses reopened in May and restarted rehiring, but 22.1 million is not a small number. Trump claimed that the numbers were an “affirmation of the good work” his Administration is doing.
Economist Kevin Allen Hassett, current Senior Advisor and former Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers in the Trump administration, said “President Trump is focused on building a great economy, the strongest economy that the US has ever had and the country’s economy is coming back way faster than one thought.”
“Right now I think economists need to be humble and recognise that when we’ve got 17 states where credit card spending is above where it was last year already, that it suggests that this economy is really, really coming back way faster than I thought” Hassett told the media.
He warned about the pandemic, saying the economy would be hit if there was to be a second wave of the coronavirus. “If there is a second flare-up that’s, you know, bigger than what we’ve seen and the economy does have to move towards more shutdown”
The US is the worst-affected country with over 23.56 million COVID-19 infections and more than 122,000 deaths.
(VINAYAK)
