White House Economic Adviser Predicts Unemployment Rate Could Hit 20%

The latest jobs report finds that more than 20.5 million Americans lost their jobs in April — the worst number on record for the United States — which sent the unemployment rate soaring to 14.7%.

Now White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett is predicting that the unemployment rate could jump another roughly six percent this month. In an interview on CNN’s “State of the Union” on Sunday, Hassett was asked how high he thinks the unemployment rate will get. 

“I think that just looking at the flow of initial claims that it looks like we’re probably going to get close to 20% in the next report,” he responded. 

He continued, “Depending on whether the virus has really abated by that point, and economies are really getting going again. Then it could start to head down from there. But I would guess sort of middle of the summer is when we’re going to start to go into the transition phase.”

Additionally, Hassett predicted that the third and fourth quarter of the year will see “very strong growth.”

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In April, the unemployment rate rose from 4.4 percent to 14.7% as mitigation efforts aimed at slowing the spread of the COVID-19 forced businesses to shut their doors.

Hassett previously predicted that the U.S. would see its worst GDP numbers since the Great Depression, as IJR reported.

He also estimated the unemployment rate in the first week of May would be between 16% and 17%.