Following President Trump’s remarks on the recently issued jobs report, which stated 4.8 million jobs were created in June, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin touted the fact that unemployment had not reached the nadir many expected.
“Some people thought we’d have 30 million unemployed,” Mnuchin said. “We never got to that.”
In fact, more than 48 million people have filed for first time unemployment claims since mid-March, with the March and April BLS jobs reports showing the US losing 22.2 million jobs.
Asked about the worrisome trend of 15 weeks with more than one million first time unemployment claims, Mnuchin put the blame on states inefficiently processing applications without addressing the aggregate number.
“Jobs numbers are the most accurate numbers,” he replied. “States are lagging in unemployment claims processing.”
White House economic advisor Larry Kudlow also addressed the press, but said nothing of substance, referring to expected economic data in the coming months without addressing the current economic situation.