U.S. Budget and Economy

On December 21, 2025, Margaret Brennan interviewed the White House National Economic Council Director, Kevin Hassett, on "Face the Nation". According to this transcript , it included the following exchange: MARGARET BRENNAN: Let me ask you a bit about tariffs. Since as far back as July, we have heard the president refer to this idea of $2,000 checks being given out to households. The Treasury secretary said this would go to households making less than $100,000. Should Americans plan to receive those checks in 2026? HASSETT: That's going to depend on what happens with Congress. Congress is going to have to send those money to those peoples. But the thing we can say is that since July, we've had a lot of positive news about the economy. We've had a couple of quarters of almost 4% growth. We've got a big government surplus actually running for a few months in a row. The deficit relative to last year, is down by $600 billion and so in the summer, I wasn't s...

On January 9, 2026, the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS) released the Employment Situation Report for December of 2025 . Following is the first paragraph of that report: Both total nonfarm payroll employment (+50,000) and the unemployment rate (4.4 percent) changed little in December, the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics reported today. Employment continued to trend up in food services and drinking places, health care, and social assistance. Retail trade lost jobs. Shortly later, Stephen Moore posted a tweet on X which stated the following: Don't believe the headlines calling this a 'weak jobs report.' The household survey tells the real story: A record number of Americans working and 200,000 more people joining the workforce. Moore's claim that "200,000 more people joining the workforce" in December can be checked on the BLS web site as follows: Go to https://www.bls.gov/ Click on "DATA TOOLS" and then "BLS Popular Series" on the...