>> As Congress still struggles to pass another stimulus bill to offer Americans financial
relief that they desperately need during this ongoing pandemic. Treasury Secretary Steve
Mnuchin, continues to repeat the same lies that have been debunked over and over again
in regard to the enhanced unemployment benefits. So recently, he was speaking to Martha Raddatz,
she pushed back just a little bit.
But we come back from this clip, we're gonna push back a lot, take a look.
>> So I think on the concept, we absolutely agree on enhanced unemployment. We wanna fix
the issue, wherein some cases people are overpaid. And we wanna make sure there's the right incentives.
But again, let me just emphasize, we put on the table a proposal.
Let's extend it for one week at the same rate while we negotiate so we don't hurt the American
public. >> So you do think it is a disincentive to
find a job if you have that extra $600. >> There's no question in certain cases, where
we're paying people more to stay home than to work that's created issues in the entire
economy.
>> But let me just say, you have to look at all of these things-
>> I want to interrupt you there for just one second, it's not all the evidence. A Yale
study from this month refutes that saying, many economists who have studied the benefits
said that so far they don't see any evidence in labor market data that the payments are
affecting the rate at which people are returning to work during the pandemic.
>> Well, let me just say I went to Yale. >> I know that. I agree on the certain things,
I don't always agree, there's a Chicago study, because through all the people that are overpaid,
but let's just face it, we know factually, okay? There are cases where people are overpaid.
>> I went to Yale, no one cares. No one cares that you went to Yale. And I looked for that
Chicago study and there's no Chicago study that provides credible evidence indicating
that Americans are choosing to stay home rather than go back to work because of these enhanced
unemployment benefits.
In fact, why don't we talk about the credible study that was cited there by Yale and give
you the relevant points that were brought up in it. So the researchers found no evidence,
the recipients of more generous benefits were less likely to return to work. They also found
that workers who received larger increases in their unemployment benefits, relative to
their wages did not experience greater declines in employment after the CARES Act was enacted.
Also, the report found that workers receiving larger increases in unemployment benefits
experienced very similar gains and employment by early May, relative to workers with less-generous
benefit increases. People with more generously expanded benefits also resumed working at
a similar or slightly quicker rate than others did, according to this report.
And by the way, a top official with the Minneapolis Federal Reserve was also interviewed recently,
and he had some thoughts about these enhanced unemployment benefits. In addition to the
need to possibly shut down for the second time in order to save the economy, take a
look. >> One of the republican arguments is that,
at $600 there are some number of workers who are getting paid more than they would in a
job and therefore they're staying at home.
Do you see any evidence in the data that supports public policy based on that idea?
>> Well, not right now, not when 20 million people are out of work relative to February,
there's just so many fewer jobs than there are workers available. At some point, it'll
be an issue.
When we get the unemployment rate eventually back down to 5%. And we wanna get it back
down to 4% or three and a half where it was before. Yes, that disincentive to work becomes
material. But right now, it's simply not a factor in the macro economy that we have in
the US.
If we were to lockdown hard for a month or six weeks, we could get the case camp down
so that our testing and our contact tracing was actually enough to control it, the way
that it's happening in the Northeast right now. They had a rocky start, but they're doing
a pretty good job right now.
Now, if we don't do that, and we just have this raging virus spreading throughout the
country with flare ups and local lockdowns for the next year or two, which is entirely
possible. We're gonna see many, many more business bankruptcies, small businesses, big
businesses, and that's gonna take a lot of time to recover from.
>> So, we've talked about these lies coming from Republicans for quite some time now.
And what amazes me is their utter disdain for Americans overall. To the point where
someone bringing in $2400 in unemployment benefits is considered like astronomically
high. And these types of arguments come from people like Steve Mnuchin, who built his wealth.
He built his wealth off of committing fraud and wrongfully foreclosing on people during
the 2008 economic collapse, that's how he made his wealth with One West Bank. And he's
turning around and he's pointing fingers at working Americans, blaming them and and defaming
them as lazy people who don't wanna go back to work.
There are no jobs, that's part of the problem. But I'm sorry, I wanted to go to you and get
your thoughts. >> Yeah, man, this is probably the issue that
grinds my gears probably more than anything in our politics right now. And it's simple.
When I hear Mnuchin get on TV and say that, he's essentially parroting a stance from the
Republican party.
It's just dog was so to me, it's the people who are actually hurting within that party
who vote reliably Republican. When he says work is being disincentivize, essentially
he's saying, there's a bunch of negroes and brown people who are benefiting from this,
who refuse to get their asses up and go to work, right?
That's a one. And it can always freaking works, even to people who are actually hurting right
now and aren't able to work. But if I had a chance to speak to some of those people,
I would tell them how the game is given away every single time. When the Fed gave $4 trillion
to the market, nobody said it disincentivized responsible trading, nobody said that.
Nobody says when American Airlines, basically a week and a half into this thing. First people
with their hands out after years of billions and billions in profits, and stock buybacks,
and ridiculously unhealthy corporate debt. Nobody came out and said, we're incentivizing
risky, stupid business behavior. We're incentivizing greed and stupidity within the market.
We just wrote a check for 4 trillion, there was no debate. There was no chat, there was
no conversation. We just did it for them. But normal people, working people, now that
they're in a bind, actual binds, rent, foreclosures, like the people that American. I'm not talking
about our flight attendants or even our pilots, the corporate board, they're not in danger
of anything.
The people who actually benefited from the stock buybacks and things of that nature,
they're not in danger of anything. They're gonna still have two summer homes. They're
gonna get a crazy parachute if the company goes belly up. There is no danger for them.
And you never hear this from them.
You will never hear them say that, the oligarchs of the United States of America are incentivized
to be greedy, risky, practice bad business when we bailed them out with the wave of a
pen, there's no Mitch Mcconnell. There's no Pelosi, there's no Trump, nobody questions
it. We just freaking do it for them.
And so that's why Mnuchin going on TV, and even Martha Raddatz let's face it, she's not
exactly pairing him now, you know what I'm saying? Even she had to be like, what the
hell is going on, brother? >> The negotiations in Congress and the legislation,
and the back and forth.
You're right, Federal Reserve comes in is like, we're gonna bail you out, you're gonna
be fine. And that's exactly why there's this disconnect right now, between what average
Americans are experiencing with their finances. And what we're seeing in the stock market.
I mean, think about it. >> Things are great
>> Because your spending is not high right now, if they have any disposable income, they're
saving it.
So for instance, on average before the pandemic, there was about an 8% savings rate among average
Americans. That number has now increased to 20%. Because people aren't going out, they're
not spending on restaurants, or trips, or products. Small businesses are getting hurt
as a result of that. >> Or in the case of our president, prostitutes
like, guys are cutting back now.
>> Always keeping it real, I love it. No, but the stock market was supposed to be driven
by consumer activity, and that's not the case anymore. It's based on Federal Reserve printing
money and yeah, you're right. The corporate CEOs are gonna be fine, they're not hurting.
And on top of that during the CARES Act, Congress handed over $500 billion to treasury secretary
Steve Mnuchin and told him, hey, how about your corporate buddies?
No transparency, no nothing. That was on top of the Federal Reserve already bailing out
these massive corporations. So it's beyond infuriating to hear this type of defamation
coming from members of the Trump administration as Americans suffer under this broken economic
system in the middle of a pandemic. >> We could tomorrow, we could start on infrastructure
in America all over the country.
People would get good jobs, well paying jobs, they get Benny's, they get all of that with
the wave of a pen. We could do it. We could afford it. We could make it happen tomorrow
for normal people. Out of work people, all across America, and I'm not just talking about,
because a lot of people think when it's a big government spend, it's only going to help
people in the cities, on the coast and all that stuff.
No, I'm talking about the infrastructure of this country is deteriorating everywhere.
And it would come at a fraction of the $4 trillion we gave to the market. And we would
be putting real normal Americans in dignified jobs, right? You're not working at Walmart
where they get to treat you out what they want and act like you're some type of corporate
slave.
Or in the case of Amazon where this dude is richer than God, right? And his workers are
working under some of the most obscene conditions. This stuff could be done tomorrow. And we
used to do things like this all the time, or at least you know. Back in the 40s or whatever
FDR, we used to do big things like this, we used to see the government as able to do things
that can help people.
Now we just help the freaking stock market.