Trump reassures lost jobs will be back 'very soon.' Experts say it could take a decade.
President Trump put on a cheery face on Friday as the country reeled from a historic job report that reflected the devastating impact of the coronavirus pandemic on the American economy. "I created, as president — we had the strongest economy in the history of the world, the strongest economy we've ever had, and we had to close it, which is artificial," Trump said during a wide-ranging interview with Fox & Friends. "Those jobs will all be back, and they'll be back very soon. And next year, we're going to have a phenomenal year."
Unemployment spiked to 14.7 percent in April, the highest since the Great Depression and triple what it was in February, with the numbers even higher for certain demographics. Government data revealed that Hispanic unemployment is 18.9 percent, or nearly one in five, while African American unemployment is 16.7 percent, CBS News reports. "It's fully expected, there's no surprise, everybody knows that," Trump told Fox in reaction to the staggering numbers. "Even the Democrats aren't blaming me for that."
Still, America's unemployment numbers are especially startling compared with Europe; Germany, for example, has seen unemployment rise from 5.1 percent to 5.8 percent over the same time period due to its robust subsidy programs, The Washington Post reports.
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Trump's reassurances also run counter to analysis by experts, who say it could potentially take "much of the next decade" for the economy to recover. "We have to be utterly realistic about this because there is political fantasy out there and then there is economic reality," Joseph Brusuelas, chief economist at consulting firm RSM, told Politico. "It is going to be years before we recover all of these lost jobs and as much as 25 percent of them aren't ever coming back."
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Jeva Lange was the executive editor at TheWeek.com. She formerly served as The Week's deputy editor and culture critic. She is also a contributor to Screen Slate, and her writing has appeared in The New York Daily News, The Awl, Vice, and Gothamist, among other publications. Jeva lives in New York City. Follow her on Twitter.
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