White House economic adviser Larry Kudlow defended President Donald Trump's performance, touting the stock market's surge to a record even as millions of people remain unemployed.
In a speech Tuesday on the second night of the Republican National Convention, Kudlow painted the pandemic, and the economic shutdown to contain it, as a once-in-a-century event that the country is overcoming.
"Right now, our economic health is coming back," he said. "With emergency spending and tax cuts, Americans are going back to work. There's a housing boom. There's an auto boom. A manufacturing boom. A consumer spending boom. Stocks are in record territory."
Consumers have been resilient during the recovery, fueling better-than-expected sales for big businesses including Home Depot Inc., Walmart Inc. and Amazon.com Inc. The rebounds in housing sales and manufacturing have also been a bright spots.
But a report released earlier Tuesday showed that Americans are uneasy about what's ahead. American consumer confidence dropped in August to the lowest since 2014 amid persistently high joblessness and a deadlock in Congress on additional stimulus.
Kudlow described the recovery as "V" shaped, though many economists are more cautious and see a bumpier road to come as the divide deepens between higher-income Americans who can work from home and spend or buy new homes with lower-income Americans in the hardest hit sectors of the economy such as restaurants and hospitality.
Applications for U.S. unemployment benefits unexpectedly increased to more than 1.1 million in the week ended Aug. 15 and millions more continue to file for assistance each week.
