Friday, Congressman Robert Aderholt, R-Haleyville, touted the great improvement in the unemployment numbers in the May jobs report. Aderholt made the comments in an email newsletter.
“Just yesterday, (Thursday) many economic pontificators were on TV predicting that when the new unemployment numbers come out on Friday morning, the unemployment rate would be above 20% at levels not seen since the Great Depression,” Rep. Aderholt said. “Well, the numbers are now out, and the unemployment rate actually dropped to 13.3% as the economy added 2.5 million jobs. As states like Alabama have reopened, we have begun the process of reigniting this great American economic engine. I believe this number will continue to come down as more people go back to work.”
Many economic experts had predicted that the economy would lose another seven and a half million jobs; but instead the economy gained two and a half million jobs even though many states were still under shelter in place orders keeping many businesses closed.
“Experts” predicted that America would lose 7.5 million jobs last month. Instead, our country added 2.5 million—10 million more than expected,” Pres. Trump said. “We’re starting an incredible period of growth!”
The April report was the worst jobs report since the Great Depression of the 1930s. May’s 2.5 million jobs was the most new jobs ever recorded in a single month.
As businesses reopened the economy added: 1.2 million leisure and hospitality jobs, 464,000 construction jobs, 424,000 education and healthcare jobs, 368,000 retail jobs, and 225,000 manufacturing jobs
“We had the greatest economy in the history of the world. And that strength let us get through this horrible pandemic,” President Trump said. “We’re going to be back there. I think we’re going to actually be back higher next year than ever before. And the only thing that can stop us is bad policy.”
The United States had the strongest economy in fifty years in February and was coming off of an unprecedented decade long period of economic growth. Then the coronavirus crisis hit and state, local, and national leaders began shutting down businesses, schools, churches, factories, sports, events, etc. The forced economic shutdown to slow the spread of the coronavirus resulted in declining economic growth and rapidly rising unemployment.
Alabama, like many states began reopening its economy in early May. Social distancing is probably here to stay moving forward; but an increasing number of people do have jobs.
There is still a lot of improvement needed to get back to full employment, less than five percent. A recent Congressional Budget Office report, that was released before the May jobs report, predicted that it may take until 2030 for the economy to fully recover from the coronavirus crisis and the forced economic shutdown. Since Feb. 27, 112,469 Americans have died of COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus strain, SAR-CoV-2.
Congressman Robert Aderholt is serving in his twelfth term representing Alabama’s Fourth Congressional District.
