WASHINGTON, DC — President Donald Trump took a victory lap over the coronavirus and his political foes in a Friday morning news conference after a surprising Labor Department report that showed businesses added 2.5 million jobs to their payrolls in May as they began rehiring laid-off workers.
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The unemployment rate was a still high 13.3 percent, on par with joblessness during the Great Depression, but Trump said the gains indicate the worst of the coronavirus pandemic and the economic disruption it caused is over and governors of states still under lockdown orders should lift them.
“I don’t know why they continue to lock down,” he said.”You do social distancing and you wear masks if you want,” Trump said, but added that states need to reopen.
Economists had predicted businesses would shed another 8 million jobs before recovery would begin, but Trump said the report “shows that what we’ve been doing is right.”
“This is outstanding what’s happened today,” he said.
Trump pitched himself as the commander of a “rocket ship” economic rebound and said it’s a persuasive reason for his re-election in November.
“I’m telling you next year, unless something happens or the wrong people get in here, this will turn around,” Trump said.
How long the rebound will last is yet unanswered, though. While some evidence has shown the job-market meltdown had bottomed out and the number of Americans applying for unemployment benefits down for nine straight weeks, consumers will need to return to their pre-outbreak spending habits for hiring to continue at a solid pace.
Even with the surprising gain in May, it may take months for all those who lost work in April and March to find jobs. Some economists forecast the rate could remain in double-digits through the November elections and into next year.
It’s also not yet known how many jobs were permanently lost to the pandemic, whether reopenings in the state will create a second wave of coronavirus deaths or the effects George Floyd protests around the country are having on businesses. Business closures related to vandalism and looting occurring during some of the street demonstrations were not included in the May report, but could be reflected in June.
Some economists forecast double-digit unemployment through the November elections and into 2021, but Trump predicted the economy would be in “very good” shape by July and August and the fall would be “spectacular.”
“We’ll go back to having the greatest economy anywhere in the world,” he said.
But there is widening concern that Americans won’t share equally in the recovery — one of the salient points raised in demonstrations taking place across the country. The overall job cuts have widened economic disparities: While the unemployment rate for white Americans was 12.4 percent May, it was 17.6 percent for Hispanics and 16.8 percent for African-Americans.
A few businesses are reporting signs of progress even in hard-hit industries. American Airlines, for example, said this week that it will fly 55 percent of its U.S. routes in July, up from just 20 percent in May.
And the Cheesecake Factory said one-quarter of its nearly 300 restaurants have reopened, though with limited capacity. Sales are at nearly 75 percent of the levels reached a year ago, the company said.
Erica Groshen, a labor economist at Cornell University and a former commissioner of the Labor Department’s Bureau of Labor Statistics, said hiring could ramp up relatively quickly in the coming months and reduce unemployment to low double-digits by year’s end.
“Then my inclination is that it will be a long, slow slog,” she said.
Until most Americans are confident they can shop, travel, eat out and fully return to their other spending habits without fear of contracting the virus, the economy is likely to remain sluggish.
Gwyneth Duesbery, 22, returned this week to her job as a restaurant hostess in Grand Rapids, Michigan, as Bowdie’s Chop House prepares to reopen with tables 6 feet apart and seating capacity reduced to about one-quarter.
“I am concerned that it will expose me to potential diseases, and expose others, no matter the precautions that we take,” she said. “It’s kind of uncharted waters.”
Trump also defended his handling of the pandemic, saying that had he not acted to recommend closings more than 1 million Americans would have died. More than 108,000 people are confirmed to have lost their lives due to COVID-19, according to a tally from Johns Hopkins University.