White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett on Monday predicted that the unemployment rate for April would rise to the highest levels since the Great Depression.
“We’re going to see a number that is maybe 16% or 17%,” he told CNBC.
The Labor Department is scheduled to announce the unemployment rate on Friday.
Hassett also predicted that the economic contraction in the second quarter would be extreme.
“You’re looking at something like minus 20% to minus 30% in the second quarter,” Hassett said, adding that it will be “the biggest negative number that we’ve seen since the Great Depression.”
The unemployment rate for March was just 4.4%, but layoffs skyrocketed in the second half of the month and were not part of the calculation for last month. Over 26 million people have lost their jobs in the last five weeks, the jobless claims numbers show.
Record high jobless claims have overwhelmed state agencies in recent weeks. The result is that people are unable to sign up and receive payments.
Hassett left his position as chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers only to the return to the administration temporarily last month as an economic adviser during the pandemic.
“It’s an emergency situation,” he said. “I thought I had moved on to the next stage, and I came back.”
