Trump says he saved 51-million jobs in pandemic but economists disagree
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Boston/Washington — Standing before six US flags during a press conference at his country club in Bedminster, New Jersey, President Donald Trump heralded what has become a central plank of his argument for re-election in November: his administration’s handling of the economic fallout of the Covid-19 pandemic
“Through the historic relief package that I signed into law, we saved over 50-million American jobs,” he said in the August 15 remarks. Referring to his Democratic opponents, he said, “They don’t like these kind of numbers because they think it’ll hurt them in the election.”
The estimate that the $660bn taxpayer-funded Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) saved about 51-million jobs has been trumpeted by the Republican Party, its Congressional leadership and the president’s re-election campaign. On Monday, Trump touted it again at a rally west of Charlotte, North Carolina, site of the Republican National Convention.
However, the PPP probably did not save 51-million jobs, or anywhere close to it, according to Reuters interviews with economists and an analysis of the program’s data. Half a dozen economists put the number of jobs saved by the initiative at only a fraction of 51-million, ranging between 1-million and 14-million.
“I don’t think there is an economist who would say that the programme has saved 50-million jobs,” said Richard Prisinzano, who was a financial economist at the US department of the treasury for 13 years before leaving in 2017. His rough estimate, Prisinzano said, is 5-million to 7-million jobs saved, based on his own adjustments to other researchers’ work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and elsewhere.
Officials in Trump’s own administration give varying explanations for the 51-million figure. In interviews with Reuters, officials of the treasury department and the Small Business Administration (SBA), which oversee the PPP programme, said the 51-million referred to the total number of workers reported by businesses approved for a loan, not the number of jobs that were saved.
White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow gave some support to that assessment in an interview with Reuters, saying he surmised the jobs figure was the sum of all jobs at businesses that received PPP loans.
“We saved a lot of jobs, there’s no question about that,” he said.
Small businesses
The PPP was part of about $3-trillion of bailout measures passed in the spring. At the time, there was little debate that funding was needed for small businesses as the economic blows ...
“Through the historic relief package that I signed into law, we saved over 50-million American jobs,” he said in the August 15 remarks. Referring to his Democratic opponents, he said, “They don’t like these kind of numbers because they think it’ll hurt them in the election.”
The estimate that the $660bn taxpayer-funded Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) saved about 51-million jobs has been trumpeted by the Republican Party, its Congressional leadership and the president’s re-election campaign. On Monday, Trump touted it again at a rally west of Charlotte, North Carolina, site of the Republican National Convention.
However, the PPP probably did not save 51-million jobs, or anywhere close to it, according to Reuters interviews with economists and an analysis of the program’s data. Half a dozen economists put the number of jobs saved by the initiative at only a fraction of 51-million, ranging between 1-million and 14-million.
“I don’t think there is an economist who would say that the programme has saved 50-million jobs,” said Richard Prisinzano, who was a financial economist at the US department of the treasury for 13 years before leaving in 2017. His rough estimate, Prisinzano said, is 5-million to 7-million jobs saved, based on his own adjustments to other researchers’ work at Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and elsewhere.
Officials in Trump’s own administration give varying explanations for the 51-million figure. In interviews with Reuters, officials of the treasury department and the Small Business Administration (SBA), which oversee the PPP programme, said the 51-million referred to the total number of workers reported by businesses approved for a loan, not the number of jobs that were saved.
White House chief economic adviser Larry Kudlow gave some support to that assessment in an interview with Reuters, saying he surmised the jobs figure was the sum of all jobs at businesses that received PPP loans.
“We saved a lot of jobs, there’s no question about that,” he said.
Small businesses
The PPP was part of about $3-trillion of bailout measures passed in the spring. At the time, there was little debate that funding was needed for small businesses as the economic blows ...