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During a Thursday interview with Jim Cramer and David Faber on CNBC, President Donald Trump's Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin commented on the state of the US economy.
However a key bragging point for Trump for the last three plus years was deemed irrelevant.
Faber asked:
"We knew the jobless claims was not going to be a good one. I am curious what your thoughts were when you saw that 3.283 million number this morning?"
Mnuchin replied:
"To be honest with you, I just think these numbers right now are not relevant whether they're bigger or smaller in the short term."
For years, others pointed out that straight numbers for employment—and the stock market—do not indicate economic prosperity for most people. How many of those employed are working multiple jobs? How many of those jobs pay a living wage?
But only when those numbers don't offer bragging rights does the Trump administration discount their value.
Mnuchin added—referring to the House of Representatives relief bill and transferring the credit for congressional legislation to the President:
"Obviously, there are people who have jobless claims, and, again, the good thing about the bill is the President is protecting those people."
"So you know, now with these plans, small businesses hopefully will be able to hire back a lot of those people."
"Last week, they didn't know if they had protections. They didn't have any cash."
"They had no choice, now with this bill passed by Congress, there are protections, and as I said, hopefully, those workers will be rehired, but between these three programs, it protects all of American workers."
"And, by the way, you know, lots of big companies do continue to hire, for obviously grocery stores, pharmacies, you know, delivery services. These companies are on overtime, so I know they're hiring people as fast as they can."
You can see Mnuchin's remarks here.
People disagreed with Mnuchin's assessment of what does and doesn't matter.
Thursday's unemployment figures do not reflect the self-employed, contractors and the underemployed. Economists believe the stimulus and relief packages passed by Congress are inadequate to stave off the coming economic crash.
And ignoring issues and spinning them to the media won't help anyone but the spin doctors themselves.
The book Fat Cat: The Steve Mnuchin Story is available here.