Trump economic adviser Larry Kudlow claimed Friday after a strong jobs report that the economy is in no danger of contracting, dismissing fears raised recently by some investors that recent financial market turmoil could be the precursor to a recession.
“I know this has been a gloomy period, I know people are concerned about the stock market — OK, corrections come and go, nobody particularly likes it … but there’s no recession in sight,” Kudlow said in an appearance on Bloomberg after the release of the December jobs report.
The monthly report on payrolls showed 312,000 new jobs in the last month of 2018, far more than investors expected and about three times as many as needed to keep unemployment trending down.
Kudlow, the director of the White House’s National Economic Council, said the strong pace of job creation is sustainable.
He cited the favorable data in Friday’s report on both wages and hours worked, noting that the statistics indicate that workers have more money to spend. “That’s a lot of consumer firepower,” he said. “I think you saw that during the holiday selling season.”
[Related: US payrolls shatter expectations, surge 312,000 in December]
