Treasury secretary calls 3.2 million unemployed Americans 'not relevant'

From the March 26 edition of CNBC’s “Squawk Box”:

DAVID FABER, CNBC: Secretary Mnuchin, we knew the jobless claims number was not going to be a good one, but I am curious as to what your thoughts were when you saw that 3.283 million number this morning.

 

STEVEN MNUCHIN, U.S. Treasury secretary: You know, to be honest with you, I just think these numbers right now are not relevant, and you know whether they’re bigger or smaller in the short term, you know, I mean obviously, there are people who have jobless claims, and again the good thing about this 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 you know, by the way, 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.

Published with permission of The American Independent Foundation.