White House officials painted a rosy picture of the nation’s economic recovery on Sunday as the administration continues to negotiate a new phase of coronavirus relief legislation with Senate Republicans and the US prepares to enter its sixth month of the pandemic.
“I don’t think the economy is going south. I think it’s going north,” White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow told CNN.
Kudlow mentioned a slew of indicators of recovery, including booms in the housing, retail and auto markets and a rise in new business applications.
He claimed “the jobs picture remains strong,” calling last week’s rise in unemployment claims a “seasonal adjustment problem.”
“I don’t know the July number. We’ll learn it in a week or so, but I do think that the odds favor a big increase in job creation and a big reduction in unemployment,” Kudlow said.
More context: In an interview on Fox News Sunday, Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin said “we always said the second quarter was going to be a very bad quarter.”
However, he said he still believes the third quarter will be much better, “we expect the third quarter, the consensus is 17% GDP, so we do think you are going to see a very big rebound.”
“There are parts of the economy that are doing very well, there are parts of the economy that aren’t,” Mnuchin said.
He also noted “we got to 30” million Americans unemployed, “but we never got to 40 or 60.” He said that since then the US has created almost 10 million jobs.
Kudlow acknowledged that in hot spot states like Texas, Arizona, Florida and California there will be “some impact” on recovery, but he said he doesn’t think it will be “huge.”
The second quarter GDP numbers will be released this Thursday.