Weekly jobless claims of 1.19 million reported Thursday marked the lowest level since the beginning of the pandemic over four months ago, but the numbers are not good and President Donald Trump's call for a payroll tax cut could help businesses start to function again, economist Stephen Moore said Thursday.
"I don't like seeing a million new people signing up for unemployment benefits," Moore, the chief economist for the Heritage Foundation, said on Fox News' "Fox and Friends" Thursday, where he and Robert Wolf, a former economic adviser for President Barack Obama, discussed the report.
"We have to get the economy up and moving," Moore added. "We have to get businesses functioning and get workers back on the job. I love the idea that Donald Trump is talking about a payroll tax cut."
Wolf, though, said he opposes a payroll tax cut for many reasons, mainly because the numbers released Thursday show the 20th straight week that there have been more than a million jobless claims reported on a weekly basis and payroll tax cuts wouldn't help them or closed businesses.
"For someone who is scared about deficits and debts, we know this is just going to absolutely destroy the deficit continually as we are reading revenues," said Wolf. "As we have a comeback, we will look at this but this would be the wrong way to place our money and it doesn't help those who need it. It's trickle-down economics."
Moore, though, pointed out that Obama provided a payroll tax cut, which was at that time touted as being "great for middle-class workers."
"One thing we should all agree on, as Americans, is it makes zero sense to be paying unemployed workers more money for not working than working," said Moore, referring to the debate about whether to continue the $600 weekly unemployment bonus money approved in the early days of the pandemic. "The idea that we will give people twice as much money for not working, that doesn't make any sense."
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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