White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett, seen here on Sept. 10, 2018, told reporters the U.S. jobless rate would likely hit 16% or more in April.
KEVIN LAMARQUE/Reuters
The shuttering of the U.S. economy due to the coronavirus pandemic is a shock of historic proportions that likely will push the national unemployment rate to 16% or higher this month and require more stimulus to ensure a strong rebound, a White House economic adviser said on Sunday.
“It’s a really grave situation,” President Donald Trump’s adviser Kevin Hassett told the ABC program “This Week.”
“This is the biggest negative shock that our economy, I think, has ever seen. We’re going to be looking at an unemployment rate that approaches rates that we saw during the Great Depression” of the 1930s, Hassett added.
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Lockdowns around the United States to curtail the spread of the novel coronavirus have hammered the economy, shuttering businesses and sending unemployment skyrocketing.
A record 26.5 million Americans have filed for jobless benefits since mid-March, and retail sales, home building and consumer confidence have all cratered.
The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office predicts U.S. GDP will contract at nearly a 40% annual rate in the second quarter, with unemployment cresting at 16% in the third quarter. But even next year, the CBO sees the jobless rate still averaging above 10 per cent.
“I think the unemployment rate is going to jump to a level probably around 16 per cent or even higher in the next jobs report” due on May 8 providing April employment statistics, Hassett told reporters at the White House.
Hassett added that the change in the nation’s GDP in the second quarter would be a negative “big number.”
“I think the next couple of months are going to look terrible. You’re going to see numbers as bad as anything we’ve ever seen before,” Hassett said, referring to U.S. economic data.
“We’re going to need really big thoughtful policies to put together to make it so that people are optimistic again,” Hassett added.
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Trump’s advisers want to hone a list of five or six ideas to present to Congress to help clear the economic carnage, Hassett said.
“I’m sure that over the next three or four weeks, everybody’s going to pull together and come up with a plan to give us the best chance possible for a V-shaped recovery,” Hassett told ABC. “I … don’t think you get it if we don’t have another round of really solid legislation.”
A “V-shaped recovery” in one in which an economy bounces back sharply after a precipitous decline.
TENSIONS ON CAPITOL HILL
The U.S. Congress has already approved $3 trillion in coronavirus relief in a show of bipartisan support for laid off workers and an economy in free fall.
Now, lawmakers are poised for a battle over federal assistance to state and local governments whose budgets have been shattered by a plunge in tax revenue even as they have had to take extraordinary measures during a pandemic that has caused a U.S. death toll approaching 55,000.
New York City needs $7.4 billion in federal aid to offset economic losses from the coronavirus, its mayor said on Sunday.
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“If New York City is not (made) whole, it will drag down the entire region, and it will hold up the entire national economic restart,” Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat, said on the Fox program “Sunday Morning Futures.”
Like de Blasio, many of the nation’s governors – Democrats and Republicans alike – have pressed the Trump administration and Congress to come forward with a sizable relief package.
“We will have state and local (aid), and we will have it in a very significant way,” House of Representatives Speaker Nancy Pelosi, the top Democrat in Congress, said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
“The governors are impatient,” Pelosi added. “Their impatience will help us get an even bigger number.”
Trump has shown a willingness to support aid for cities and states, but some fellow Republicans – including Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell – have voiced wariness, citing a mounting federal debt load.
McConnell, in remarks that have drawn sharp rebukes from various governors as well as Democratic lawmakers, has suggested that states should declare bankruptcy instead.
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Asked whether Trump would support providing hundreds of billions of dollars to the states, Mnuchin said any further relief would have to receive support from both parties.
“This is a war. We’ll win this war. If we need to spend more money we will, and we’ll only do it with bipartisan support,” Mnuchin told “Fox News Sunday.”
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OTTAWA – Canada’s unemployment rate held steady at 6.5 per cent last month as hiring remained weak across the economy.
Statistics Canada’s labour force survey on Friday said employment rose by a modest 15,000 jobs in October.
Business, building and support services saw the largest gain in employment.
Meanwhile, finance, insurance, real estate, rental and leasing experienced the largest decline.
Many economists see weakness in the job market continuing in the short term, before the Bank of Canada’s interest rate cuts spark a rebound in economic growth next year.
Despite ongoing softness in the labour market, however, strong wage growth has raged on in Canada. Average hourly wages in October grew 4.9 per cent from a year ago, reaching $35.76.
Friday’s report also shed some light on the financial health of households.
According to the agency, 28.8 per cent of Canadians aged 15 or older were living in a household that had difficulty meeting financial needs – like food and housing – in the previous four weeks.
That was down from 33.1 per cent in October 2023 and 35.5 per cent in October 2022, but still above the 20.4 per cent figure recorded in October 2020.
People living in a rented home were more likely to report difficulty meeting financial needs, with nearly four in 10 reporting that was the case.
That compares with just under a quarter of those living in an owned home by a household member.
Immigrants were also more likely to report facing financial strain last month, with about four out of 10 immigrants who landed in the last year doing so.
That compares with about three in 10 more established immigrants and one in four of people born in Canada.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 8, 2024.
The Canadian Institute for Health Information says health-care spending in Canada is projected to reach a new high in 2024.
The annual report released Thursday says total health spending is expected to hit $372 billion, or $9,054 per Canadian.
CIHI’s national analysis predicts expenditures will rise by 5.7 per cent in 2024, compared to 4.5 per cent in 2023 and 1.7 per cent in 2022.
This year’s health spending is estimated to represent 12.4 per cent of Canada’s gross domestic product. Excluding two years of the pandemic, it would be the highest ratio in the country’s history.
While it’s not unusual for health expenditures to outpace economic growth, the report says this could be the case for the next several years due to Canada’s growing population and its aging demographic.
Canada’s per capita spending on health care in 2022 was among the highest in the world, but still less than countries such as the United States and Sweden.
The report notes that the Canadian dental and pharmacare plans could push health-care spending even further as more people who previously couldn’t afford these services start using them.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 7, 2024.
Canadian Press health coverage receives support through a partnership with the Canadian Medical Association. CP is solely responsible for this content.
As Canadians wake up to news that Donald Trump will return to the White House, the president-elect’s protectionist stance is casting a spotlight on what effect his second term will have on Canada-U.S. economic ties.
Some Canadian business leaders have expressed worry over Trump’s promise to introduce a universal 10 per cent tariff on all American imports.
A Canadian Chamber of Commerce report released last month suggested those tariffs would shrink the Canadian economy, resulting in around $30 billion per year in economic costs.
More than 77 per cent of Canadian exports go to the U.S.
Canada’s manufacturing sector faces the biggest risk should Trump push forward on imposing broad tariffs, said Canadian Manufacturers and Exporters president and CEO Dennis Darby. He said the sector is the “most trade-exposed” within Canada.
“It’s in the U.S.’s best interest, it’s in our best interest, but most importantly for consumers across North America, that we’re able to trade goods, materials, ingredients, as we have under the trade agreements,” Darby said in an interview.
“It’s a more complex or complicated outcome than it would have been with the Democrats, but we’ve had to deal with this before and we’re going to do our best to deal with it again.”
American economists have also warned Trump’s plan could cause inflation and possibly a recession, which could have ripple effects in Canada.
It’s consumers who will ultimately feel the burden of any inflationary effect caused by broad tariffs, said Darby.
“A tariff tends to raise costs, and it ultimately raises prices, so that’s something that we have to be prepared for,” he said.
“It could tilt production mandates. A tariff makes goods more expensive, but on the same token, it also will make inputs for the U.S. more expensive.”
A report last month by TD economist Marc Ercolao said research shows a full-scale implementation of Trump’s tariff plan could lead to a near-five per cent reduction in Canadian export volumes to the U.S. by early-2027, relative to current baseline forecasts.
Retaliation by Canada would also increase costs for domestic producers, and push import volumes lower in the process.
“Slowing import activity mitigates some of the negative net trade impact on total GDP enough to avoid a technical recession, but still produces a period of extended stagnation through 2025 and 2026,” Ercolao said.
Since the Canada-United States-Mexico Agreement came into effect in 2020, trade between Canada and the U.S. has surged by 46 per cent, according to the Toronto Region Board of Trade.
With that deal is up for review in 2026, Canadian Chamber of Commerce president and CEO Candace Laing said the Canadian government “must collaborate effectively with the Trump administration to preserve and strengthen our bilateral economic partnership.”
“With an impressive $3.6 billion in daily trade, Canada and the United States are each other’s closest international partners. The secure and efficient flow of goods and people across our border … remains essential for the economies of both countries,” she said in a statement.
“By resisting tariffs and trade barriers that will only raise prices and hurt consumers in both countries, Canada and the United States can strengthen resilient cross-border supply chains that enhance our shared economic security.”
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 6, 2024.
