Jen Psaki has had plenty of viral moments as the White House press secretary. And an alarmingly high number of those moments feature Fox News correspondent Peter Doocy.
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Rather than asking straight-forward questions, Doocy often goes for a gotcha effect. The Fox reporter also heavily injects his own opinion into his queries. He did that on Monday while talking to Jen Psaki.
Doocy asked, “Unemployment only rose by about 266,000 jobs in April. How does the White House know that people are just choosing not to apply for jobs because the extra unemployment benefits are so good?”
The press secretary responded, “We actually see the data and our analysis shows that the lack of vaccinations, the lower rate, which is why I refer to the data and the week that it was taken — it has an impact. Child care has an impact. Schools reopening has an impact. But there’s also the need to pay a livable working wage.”Â
The Fox reporter argued, “Anybody who is making $32,000 a year is better off financially just taking the unemployment benefits. So is the White House creating an incentive just to stay home?”
Psaki countered, “Well, again, the majority of economists internally and externally at the White House don’t feel that unemployment insurance — something that was done at a time to help unemployed people get through a very difficult economic downturn during a pandemic — is a major driver in our unemployment data.”
The added unemployment benefits will soon be coming to an end. Some red states have already cut them off completely. A bigger factor in unemployment is stagnant wages and that is something the White House aims at addressing soon.
Todd Neikirk is a New Jersey based politics and technology writer. His work has been featured in psfk.com, foxsports.com and hillreporter.com. He enjoys sports, politics, comic books and spending time at the shore with his family.
