White House economist Kevin Hassett said Wednesday that the government’s response to the pandemic has put the country in position for a strong recovery.
“We can turn this thing back on,” he said in an appearance on Fox Business, adding that some indicators are pointing to a robust reopening of the economy.
“We’re not seeing a wave of bankruptcies, we’re not seeing a wave of defaults because of the [emergency small business pandemic relief] loans and all the cash that we put in people’s pockets,” he said.
Hassett also pointed to the ADP report released on Wednesday that showed 2.76 million jobs were lost in May. Forecasters had expected 9 million job losses.
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“This ADP number does suggest that you’re very, very close to a turning point,” he said.
Still, Hassett is expecting a 50% decline in gross domestic product for the second quarter before the economy takes off.
“But President Trump saw that and then, you know, he organized the folks and we got — we got our act together. We’ve had three phases of stimulus, and so we’ve had the biggest policy response in history,” he said. “And then the hope would be that the policy response would be big enough to help us get back to normal quickly. And if you look at the states that have been opening up, then you can see that they are really getting back to normal quickly.”
