White House: 'Not Even a Little Bit' Disappointed in Jobs Report

On Friday’s broadcast of the Fox Business Network’s “Varney & Co.,” White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said he’s “Not even a little bit” disappointed in the current jobs numbers and “the supply side policy, that’s realigning the American economy in a very positive way.” Host Stuart Varney asked, “Investors like this report. The Fed, I think, will like this report. But you may be a bit disappointed that you’ve only got 29,000 jobs added to the economy. Disappointed a little?” Hassett answered, “No. Not even a little bit. … [T]he bottom line is that, as Steve Moore said, that President Trump’s policies, the supply side policy, that’s realigning the American economy in a very positive way. So, government employment was down, employment for everything else was up, but, most importantly, the construction is actually — so construction — factory worker construction was up about 12,000 jobs, there might be a rounding difference between me and Ed. And the 12,000 jobs means there are 112,000 people working, building factories right now that weren’t doing that when President Trump took office, and we’re seeing that, also, like in the GDP numbers this week, where GDP was revised up, dramatically, because of capital spending, and a lot of it was building factories. And then, finally, because you and I have talked, over and over, if you have a supply-side boom, then it actually puts downward pressure on inflation. And I like looking at the three-month [moving] average of the PCE, which just came out this week, and if you look at core PCE right now, the three-month moving average is at an annual rate of 2%. And if you include food and energy, it’s all the way down to 1%. So, our policies are working. We’ve got low inflation and high growth. And, by the way, GDP is still [hovering] around…4%.” Follow Ian Hanchett on Twitter @IanHanchett