WASHINGTON (Reuters) – President Donald Trump on Friday celebrated a stunning U.S. employment report that showed more than 2.5 million jobs were added last month during the thick of the coronavirus pandemic, and predicted the battered economy will recover all of its lost jobs by next year.
“Today is probably, if you think of it, the greatest comeback in American history,” Trump said at the White House.
“We’re going to be stronger than we were when we were riding high,” he added.
Trump, who had counted on a strong economy to bolster his chances of re-election in November, said the recovery could be hampered by higher taxes and implementation of a Green New Deal climate change plan if Democrats win the White House.
He spoke after the Labor Department released its jobs report for May, which showed the jobless rate dropped to 13.3% from 14.7% in April, a surprise after economists predicted it would rise to close to 20%. Nonfarm payrolls rose by just over 2.5 million jobs after a record plunge of slightly under 20.7 million in April.
However, many economists warn it could take years for the U.S. economy to regain all of those lost jobs. The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office predicted in May that there will still be 10 million fewer people employed at the end of 2021 than there were at the beginning of this ye