Trump Economic Advisor Claims People Spending More On Groceries is a Sign They’re ‘Optimistic About The Future’

President Donald Trump’s chief economic adviser Kevin Hassett told Fox News that consumers may be spending more on gas and groceries, but that’s a sign that Americans are “optimistic about the future.”

Fox News Sunday anchor Shannon Bream told Hassett that “a couple measures of confidences” show that people are actually “pessimistic about how things are going” economically.

“The University of Michigan is one of them, I know there’s another you prefer,” Bream said. “They are both showing there’s growing concern there. People are feeling — our polling shows, too — their personal situation is not going well, and they blame President Trump’s policies.”

“First of all the Michigan survey no longer has anything to do with the economy or economic sentiment, it’s just a place where Democrats get to register how angry they are at President Trump,” Hassett said.

“The bottom line is that, in the end, the literature shows that what people do when they’re going to a midterm is they look at their pockets. They feel like, is my income higher? Is my job safe? So, think about it: initial claims for unemployment insurance have been at about the lowest they’ve been since the 1960s, which means people are not losing their jobs. But real incomes are going up. And, so, those are the kind of things that historically have led elections, not sentiment surveys from a bunch of liberals at the University of Michigan.”

Bream followed up with a statistic that the percentage of credit card balances at least 90 days delinquent rose 13.12% in the first quarter.

“That’s the highest level in 15 years, and the most since the period following the 2008 financial crisis,” Bream said. “People say they’re using those cards to get through necessities because they can’t afford what is going on.”

Hassett admitted that “we do see an increased stress” on credit cards, “But, for the most part, the delinquency is different from default. There’s not any kind of financial threat to the credit card companies. That they don’t feel like they’re heading toward default scenarios, it’s just that people are taking a little bit longer.”

“One of the reasons is that people are spending more money on gas, but they’re also spending more on everything else. Not just groceries, but restaurants, and so on,” Hassett continued. “I think that’s a sign you would see when people are optimistic about the future.”

Watch the clip above via Fox News Sunday.

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