People who lost their jobs wait in line to file for unemployment in Fayetteville, Ark., on April 6, 2020.Nick Oxford/Reuters
White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett on Tuesday said he expects the U.S. unemployment rate was above 16 per cent in April, as the coronavirus pandemic began to devastate the country’s economy.
“My guess right now is it’s going to be north of 16 per cent, maybe as high as 20 per cent,” Hassett said in an interview with CNN about the unemployment rate the federal government will report on Friday. “So we are looking at probably the worst unemployment rate since the Great Depression. It’s a tremendous negative shock, a very, very terrible shock.”
Economists polled by Reuters forecast the official government report to show last month’s unemployment rate was 16 per cent and that more than 20 million jobs were lost. But economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago are estimating that the true rate could be between 25.1 per cent and 34.6 per cent.
Hassett said he had initially expected the rate would hit 20 per cent in June but after 30 million people filed for jobless benefits last month he began to anticipate a higher rate in April.
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