The U.S. economy is experiencing the “biggest negative shock” it has likely ever seen, with the country’s unemployment rate approaching the level last seen during the Great Depression, an economic adviser to President Donald Trump said Sunday.
“Make no mistake, it’s a really grave situation,” White House senior adviser Kevin Hassett said on ABC’s “This Week” when asked about the current economic outlook and Trump’s hope for a sharp, V-shaped recovery.
“We’re going to be looking at an unemployment rate that approaches rates that we saw during the Great Depression,” he said. “During the Great Recession, remember that was the financial crisis around 2008, that we lost 8.7 million jobs in the whole thing. Right now we’re losing that many jobs about every 10 days. So the lift, the economic lift for policymakers is an extraordinary one,” he said.