Financial Markets
Senior White House Adviser Kevin Hassett Believes That U.S. Economy Is Bouncing Back
For Senior White House adviser Kevin Hassett, the U.S. economy is bouncing back. For him it's doing so quickly after shutting down during the COVID-19 pandemic.
“The recovery has begun,” he said to Maria Bartiromo of Fox Business. “I think that, you know, pretty much we're looking for an acceleration over the summer and then a real boom in the second half of the year.”
Hassett pointed out the recent retail sales data that shows that American shoppers ramped up their spending on store purchases by a record 17.7 percent from April to May.
Fox Business reported that the government’s report showed that “consumers' retail purchases have retraced some of the record-setting month-to-month plunges of March (8.3 percent) and April (14.7 percent) as businesses have increasingly reopened.”
Economic Effects Remain
Good #retailnews: Though physical stores are closing, US retail sales increased a record 17.7% April to May & employers added 2.5M jobs. Is it sustainable? Some suspect it was aided by $3 trillion in rescue money. v/@bsiegel1201 https://t.co/VTNeweGmeR #landlord #bankruptcy
— Cowles & Thompson (@CowlesThompson) June 16, 2020
However, the effect of the pandemic on retailers remains severe. Purchases are still down 6.1 percent from a year ago.
“I think that what happened really is that the people who kept their jobs didn't go out and spend much because they were stuck at home, and then the people who were unemployed got very generous unemployment insurance and that piled a whole bunch of cash up into people's accounts,” Hassett said in “Maria Bartiromo's Wall Street.”
Last month’s return of shoppers was likely aided by the $3 trillion in rescue money. The federal government provided this aid to companies and households. According to Fox Business, Americans' retail purchases would need to surge by an additional 9 percent. Only will that figure can they return to their level before the pandemic.
However, any sustained recovery will depend on the following factors: “the path of the coronavirus; how willing people are to shop, travel and congregate in groups; how many businesses manage to stay open and rehire many workers and whether the government provides additional support,” Fox Business reported.
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