Coronavirus: US jobless rate will worsen, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin says

The United States’ April jobless rate, released on Friday, tripled to 14.7 per cent, the highest since the 1930s

But Mnuchin says the real rate could be closer to 25 per cent, based on the 7 million additional workers who have lost jobs since the figures were compiled

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US Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin. Photo: AP

Published: 11:36pm, 10 May 2020Updated: 9:18pm, 13 Oct 2020

US President Donald Trump’s top economic advisers on Sunday said a “safe” reopening of the country was needed urgently, as the United States stares down the worst job numbers since the Great Depression.

The April jobless rate, released on Friday, tripled to 14.7 per cent, the highest since the 1930s. And it is only set to worsen in May as job cuts spread further into white-collar work.

Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin told the Fox News Sunday programme the real unemployment rate could already be closer to 25 per cent, based on 7 million additional workers who have lost jobs since the April monthly figures were compiled, and those who have stopped looking for work.

“Aren’t we talking close to 25 per cent at this point?” Fox correspondent Chris Wallace asked the Treasury chief.

“Chris, we could be,” Mnuchin responded. “The reported numbers are probably going to get worse before they get better.”

On CBS’ Face that Nation, White House adviser Kevin Hassett said unemployment may peak “north of” 20 per cent in May or June before the economy started to come back from coronavirus-related shutdowns in the second half of 2020.

Mnuchin and Hassett stressed that the jobs market collapse had come as a result of the deliberate shutdown of the US economy to slow the spread of the coronavirus, not because of structural factors.

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