White House economic adviser says the unemployment rate is 'likely' to hit 20% in May

• White House Senior Economic Adviser Kevin Hassett said on Friday that the next jobs report will likely show unemployment around 20%.
• When counting discouraged and part-time workers, he expects the May unemployment rate could be as high as 25%.
• The comment came hours after the jobs report showed unemployment had hit 14.7% in April.
• Hassett says he expected Friday's report to be as high as 20%.
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Kevin Hassett, senior economic adviser to President Donald Trump, said on Friday that the official unemployment rate will likely hit 20% in May.

The same day, a jobs report showed that unemployment hit 14.7% in April, the highest since the Great Depression, as millions of Americans lose work because of the coronavirus pandemic.

Speaking to CNN's Poppy Harlow, Hassett said he had expected that Friday's jobs report could be as high as 20%, adding that the United States is likely to enter a "transition period" in which unemployment would fall. That period will likely come this summer, he said.

Prior to the pandemic, Trump had overseen an unemployment rate of around 3.5%, one of the lowest in decades. Employers cut 20.5 million payrolls in April, according to the Friday jobs report from the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

When including discouraged and part-time workers, Hassett said unemployment could hit as high as 25% in May.

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