Standing before half a dozen American flags during a press conference at his country club in Bedminster, New Jersey, President Donald Trump heralded what has become a central plank of his argument for re-election in November: his administration’s handling of the economic fallout of the coronavirus pandemic.
“THEY DON’T LIKE THESE KIND OF NUMBERS”
“Through the historic relief package that I signed into law, we saved over 50 million American jobs,” he said in the Aug. 15 remarks. Referring to his Democratic opponents, he said, “They don’t like these kind of numbers because they think it’ll hurt them in the election.”
The estimate that the $660 billion taxpayer-funded Paycheck Protection Program (PPP) saved some 51 million jobs has been trumpeted by the Republican Party, its Congressional leadership and the president’s reelection campaign. On Monday, Trump touted it again at a rally west of Charlotte, North Carolina, site of the Republican National Convention.
However, the PPP likely did not save 51 million jobs, or anywhere close to it, according to Reuters interviews with economists and an analysis of the program’s data. Half a dozen economists put the number of jobs saved by the initiative at only a fraction of 51 million – ranging between one million and 14 million.