WASHINGTON (Reuters) – White House economic adviser Kevin Hassett on Tuesday said he expects the U.S. unemployment rate was above 16% in April, as the coronavirus pandemic began to devastate the country’s economy last month.
“My guess right now is it’s going to be north of 16%, maybe as high as 20%,” 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.”
(Reporting by Lisa Lambert; Editing by Chizu Nomiyama)
