NEC director on price increases and slowdown in employment hiring

WASHINGTON (CBS, KYMA) - Kevin Hassett, Director of the White House National Economic Council (NEC), spoke with Margaret Brennan on Face the Nation Sunday about price increases.

President Donald Trump said prices are coming down tremendously, but according to Brennan, the Consumer Price Index data is up 3% year over year while the Personal Consumption Index is up 2.8% year over year.

This prompted her to ask Hassett what data is President Trump looking at, and what was his benchmark, to which Hassett said:

"Well, one of the things that if you saw his presentation in Pennsylvania, as he put up a bunch of charts, which he loves to do, where he went through the individual items that we've already sort of made a bunch of progress on. And so, for example, under Joe Biden, prescription drugs were up 9%. So far this year, they're down six tenths of a percent...But the point is that we've got deficit going way, way down. So right now, it's looking like the deficit for this year will be $600 billion lower than it was last year. That really helps lower inflation. We've got the trade deficit cut in half from last year. And so all of these things are things that should continue to move us towards the Fed target of 2%."

During the interview, Brennan and Hassett talked about a slow down in employment hiring, with the Business Roundtable survey saying CEOs are anticipating an employment decrease in 2026 rather than an increase.

This prompted Brennan to ask Hassett if he was concerned about the hiring slowdown, and Hassett said:

"We'll get a clearer picture because right now we just have some very difficult to pin down surveys like the gold standard for this will be really the household survey, which we don't even get for October...But we're going to get one for November. And that's going to be really important for thinking about where the job market is."

To watch more of Brennan's interview with Hassett, click here.