Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin on Sunday insisted that COVID-19 fears have not impacted overall consumer spending.
On Fox News Sunday, host Chris Wallace noted that Americans are concerned about their retirement savings after losses in the stock market.
"According to one estimate, the market has lost almost $8 trillion dollars in value," Wallace noted. "How much further are the markets going to drop?"
"I can't predict where the market is this week," Mnuchin replied. "But what I can tell you is people who bought stock after the crash in '87, people who bought stocks after the financial crisis did really well."
"But you talk about people who bought after the crash," Wallace pressed. "But when is after the crash?"
"We can't ever predict the bottom of the market or the top of the market," Mnuchin said. "There's no question there are businesses that will be severely impacted. We are focused on helping those businesses that need liquidity."
"There's some businesses that are booming," the Treasury secretary continued. "I mean, you look at the stores and the people that are buying certain consumer products. What we've seen from the credit card data, travel is down extraordinary [sic]."
Mnuchin added: "Almost corresponding is an increase in purchases of food pharmacy goods and supplies."
