US government shutdown likely to cost 60,000 private-sector jobs: Top Trump economic advisor

By Iclal Turan

WASHINGTON (AA) - The US government shutdown likely resulted in significant private-sector job losses, White House National Economic Council Director Kevin Hassett said Thursday.

Hassett told Fox News that the Council of Economic Advisers (CEA) estimates “we’re probably going to see something like 60,000 job losses because of the shutdown, and it’ll take a while to get that back.”

“If you think about all the business travel that didn’t happen and so on, a lot of those are things that people do every quarter, and now that quarter is gone,” he said.

While noting that “some of it is like permanent destruction,” Hassett maintained that broader economic conditions remain strong.

US President Donald Trump signed into law Wednesday an agreement to fund the government through the end of January, ending a historic shutdown that has become the longest in history.

"The extremists in the other party insisted on creating the longest government shutdown in American history, and they did it purely for political reasons," Trump said at the White House as he signed the spending bill. "This is no way to run a country. I hope we can all agree that the government should never be shut down again."

Trump's signature came just hours after the US House of Representatives approved the bipartisan agreement in a 222-209 vote. The Senate on Monday approved the deal that ends the 43-day funding lapse and funds the government at previous levels through Jan. 30.

The legislation also incorporates three-year-long appropriations packages covering essential agencies and programs while reinstating federal employees who were fired by Trump during the shutdown.

The shutdown began Oct. 1 after a breakdown in negotiations on federal spending priorities. Thousands of federal workers have since been furloughed, or forced to work without pay, while many government services have been curtailed or suspended.

Democrats had sought to force Republicans into extending health care subsidies under the semi-universal health care law known as the Affordable Care Act (ACA) and a reversal to cuts to the Medicaid health care program for lower-income Americans that Trump and his congressional allies implemented earlier this year.

Neither goal was achieved during the shutdown, with Republicans agreeing only to hold a later vote in the Senate on ACA subsidies that expire at year's end.