As Mark Twain is often quoted as saying, “The reports of my death are greatly exaggerated.” It seems that may also be the case with the United States economy.
Despite dire predictions from some that the United States would be heading into another great depression due to the economic shutdown, a new jobs report released from the Department of Labor (DOL) on Friday morning showed a remarkable turnaround for the economy.
According to talking points from the Council of Economic Advisors, “Forecasters were expecting 7.5 million job losses in May; instead, 2.5 million were added. This is the greatest number of jobs created in a single month ever recorded (September 1983 is the next closest with 1.1 million jobs created.)”
The unemployment rate hit 14.7% in April and was forecast by some economists to hit a shocking 19.8% in May. Instead, the unemployment rate dropped to 13.3%, indicating that Americans are getting back to work after tens of millions lost their jobs in March and April.
According to Fox Business, an estimated 21 million Americans remain out of work.
“Today is probably the greatest comeback in American history,” President Trump said about the job numbers from the Rose Garden at the White House on Friday morning. “I didn’t know it would start this quickly. I thought it would start in August, September, but it started very early. It’s an amazing thing.”
The president also noted that his administration will continue to seek economic relief from Congress in the form of a payroll tax cut. “We’ll be going for a payroll tax cut. We think that will be incredible in terms of what we’re doing because we’re going to be bigger, stronger, better than we ever were. That’s going to be a tremendous incentive… So we’re going to be asking for a payroll tax cut.”
The president added that his administration would continue to ask Congress for additional stimulus money.
On news of the massive job gains, the Dow Jones Industrial Average shot up nearly 1,000 points to over 27,000 while the NASDAQ Composite briefly hit a new record high of 9,842.48.
Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., reacted to the news by issuing a press release. “The May jobs report shows that decisive action by Congress to support small businesses and workers can make a strong difference in our economy,” the statement read. “But with more than 100,000 Americans tragically dead, 21 million still out of work and state and local budgets collapsing, now is the worst possible moment to take our foot off the gas.”
Speaker Pelosi proceeded to call on the Senate to pass The Heroes Act, which the House of Representatives passed with a vote of 208-199 last month and would spend an additional $3 trillion of taxpayer money.
It remains to be seen how quickly the economy will continue to recover, and what, if any, impact the economic recovery will have on the general election in November.
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