Hemmer Challenges Obama Official Who Called Inflation And Supply Chain Issues ‘High Class Problems’

On Friday’s episode of “America’s Newsroom” on Fox News, former Obama administration Council of Economic Advisers Chair Jason Furman was asked about a recent tweet he sent out calling inflation and supply chain issues “high class problems.”

Most of the economic problems we’re facing (inflation, supply chains, etc.) are high class problems. We wouldn’t have had them if the unemployment rate was still 10 percent. We would instead have had a much worse problem.

— Jason Furman (@jasonfurman) October 14, 2021

“Jason, you started a prairie fire yesterday,” anchor Bill Hemmer said. “To paraphrase Jay Leno, what the hell were you thinking?”

Furman replied by suggesting that the inflation we’re experiencing can be seen as a “good thing,” echoing something White House Press Secretary Jen Psaki said on Friday.

“You know, I’ll tell you what I think’s going on in the economy. You need to keep two things in your head at once,” Furman stated. “One is, inflation is real. Inflation is creating a problem for families, and we should do something about it. Number two, the reason we have this inflation is actually a good reason — that the unemployment rate has come down, that families got money, and people are buying more things than ever before. The problem isn’t that our ports stopped working, it’s that people are buying so much stuff, that so much is trying to come through our ports right now.”

After a back-and-forth, Hemmer again brought up the tweet. “My guess would be is that if you were paying two bucks a gallon for gasoline a year ago, and now it’s over four bucks, that’s not a high class problem for anyone. Middle-class America is paying for that,” Hemmer said.

Furman again pivoted, saying that people are “spending more in restaurants; they’re spending more on sporting goods; they’re spending more on nights out; they’re spending more on travel. That’s all a really good thing.”

But Hemmer wouldn’t let it go, pressing once more: “But you’re standing by this whole ‘high class problem’ thing? You haven’t backed away from that in this conversation.”

“…I’ll tell you what I think,” Furman concluded. “There’s a good side to what’s going on — people are spending more than they’ve ever spent before — and there’s a bad side to what’s going on. When everyone spends more than they’ve ever spent before, that drives prices up.”

Full transcript below:

HEMMER: Jason, you started a prairie fire yesterday. To