On Friday’s “CNN News Central,” White House Council of Economic Advisers Chair Stephen Miran said that one factor in the jobs numbers is that there was uncertainty around tariffs and the reconciliation bill, but the tariff uncertainty is “resolved in large part.”
Miran stated, “Look, this jobs report isn’t ideal. There’s no way around that. But, nevertheless, I think that the downward revisions reflect a couple of anomalous factors. First of all, about 60% of the downward revision is due to quirks of the seasonal adjustment process. Then, on top of that, there’s the fact that the president created about — in the household survey, since the president took office, he created about 2.5 million jobs for Americans, whereas, he’s — whereas, we’ve eliminated about a million jobs for foreign-born workers. That’s a result of our strong immigration policy, of our strong border policy, keeping America safe. And, eventually, the outflow of foreign workers in this data [was] bound to show up in the establishment survey, as they finally did this morning, too. Finally, we’ve been hearing a lot about uncertainty over the last few months, but that’s all resolved now. We’re creating trade deals left and right that have unlocked enormous new potential for the American economy. The tariff uncertainty is fading away. Tariff rates are settling in. The one big, beautiful bill is now law. There’s no more uncertainty over the tax bill either, over, potentially, the biggest tax hike in American history. And, on top of that, there are such strong, powerful incentives in the one big, beautiful bill for investment, things like full expensing on investment in equipment, in R&D, on new factory structures. These are huge. So, it’s all going to get much, much better from here.”
While specifically addressing the June numbers, he said, “I attribute it to the combination of the three things that I described before. About 40% of that is due to seasonal adjustment quirks around teachers. Some of it is due to declining foreign-born employment, even as we created more American-born employment, and that is going to net out in a way that you see ultimately reflected in the data like that. And then, finally, there’s the uncertainty, right? Don’t forget, we were in the midst of restructuring the global trading system in a way that hasn’t been done in decades. The president is standing up for American workers and American firms for the first time in decades. And, of course, that was going to induce some uncertainty. It induced some volatility in financial markets. And we can see, it induces some volatility in economic data too. But that uncertainty is resolved. The tariff rates are set. The one big, beautiful bill is law. It’s going to get better from here.”
Miran added, “When you think about the deals the president accomplished, the deals the president brought home from Europe, from Japan, from Korea, from other trading partners of ours, they’re very substantial deals. But there was no way of getting there without the leverage and the pressure to get there. Now, that leverage and pressure involved some uncertainty. And I do think that that uncertainty is now resolved.”
He further stated, “The data from July are still pretty decent. … But, moreover, when you look at the trade deals the president has brought home, together, with the United States, these deals represent about 55% of global GDP, right? They represent an overwhelming share of our trading partners. And so, I think it’s really important to understand that that uncertainty is resolved in large part. Of course, there are still some negotiations ongoing. Of course, we can sort of see if those proceed from here. But, largely, that uncertainty is resolved. And the one big, beautiful bill, as I said, is now resolved as well. A few months ago, we had uncertainty of, is the American economy going to be subject to the largest tax hike in history that will drive it into a recession? Of course, that’s the case. And guess what? There absolutely were firms waiting to make hiring decisions, waiting to make investment decisions for the bill to become law, because they didn’t know when they would start to be eligible for the types of investment credits that are contained in the one big, beautiful bill.”
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