Trump touts job gains as ‘greatest comeback in American history’
economy
WASHINGTON • U. S. President Donald Trump on Friday celebrated a stunning U. S. employment report that showed more than 2.5 million jobs were added last month during the thick of the coronavirus pandemic, and predicted the battered economy will recover all of its lost jobs by next year.
“Today is probably, if you think of it, the greatest comeback in American history,” Trump said at the White House.
“We’re going to be stronger than we were when we were riding high,” he added.
Trump, who had counted on a strong economy to bolster his chances of re- election in November, said the recovery could be hampered by higher taxes and implementation of a Green New Deal climate change plan if Democrats win the White House.
He spoke after the Labor Department released its jobs report for May, which showed the jobless rate dropped to 13.3 per cent from 14.7 per cent in April, a surprise after economists predicted it would rise to close to 20 per cent. Nonfarm payrolls rose by just over 2.5 million jobs after a record plunge of slightly under 20.7 million in April.
However, many economists warn it could take years for the U. S. economy to regain all of those lost jobs. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted in May that there will still be 10 million fewer people employed at the end of 2021 than there were at the beginning of this year.
Trump has struggled to respond to the fallout from the outbreak of novel coronavirus, which led to nationwide lockdowns that put the economy into a virtual standstill and left about 40 million Americans without work.
The Republican president has pressed state and local authorities to lift the business restrictions designed to slow the spread of the virus, which has killed more than 108,000 Americans and infected more than 1.88 million since February.
He said the U. S. economic recovery will accelerate as states hard hit by the pandemic, including New York and New Jersey, allow business to resume. He said states like California that still have restrictions in place should follow the example of Florida and other states that have lifted them.
The U. S. Congress has signed off on trillions of dollars in aid to lessen the economic blow from the pandemic, but Republicans and Democrats are at odds over whether additional stimulus is needed.
Democrats welcomed the upbeat jobs numbers but said Washington needed to do more to head off public-sector layoffs. “Now is not the time to be complacent or take a victory lap,” Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said.