Senior White House adviser Kevin Hassett painted a grim picture of the U.S. economy under the current coronavirus shutdowns.
Hassett, who was the chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers before recently returning to the White House, said there could be a quick economic recovery after the pandemic, but it would depend on the nation’s response in the coming months. During a Sunday interview on ABC with host George Stephanopoulos, he made it clear that the country faces an uphill battle.
“Make no mistake, it’s a really grave situation, George,” Hassett said. “This is the biggest negative shock that our economy, I think, has ever seen. We’re going to be looking at an unemployment rate that approaches rates that we saw during the Great Depression.”
He continued, “During the Great Recession, remember that was the financial crisis around 2008 that we lost 8.7 million jobs in the whole thing. Right now, we’re losing that many jobs about every 10 days. And so, the economic lift for policymakers is an extraordinary one.”
NEW: White House senior adviser Kevin Hassett tells @gstephanopoulos that the economic outlook is a “really grave situation.”
“We’re going to be looking at an unemployment rate that approaches rates that I think we saw during the Great Depression.” https://t.co/vM8WcrQKg0 pic.twitter.com/ds7QtseNqe
— This Week (@ThisWeekABC) April 26, 2020
Hassett noted that he has been “pleased” by the bipartisan effort to pass relief packages quickly. He explained that the economic recovery plan ushered in by President Barack Obama to address the Great Recession took months to pass.
As of last week, more than 26 million people had filed new jobless claims since the pandemic began.
