Psaki Defends Rising Prices: ‘Good Thing’ Because it Means ‘More People are Buying Goods’

White House press secretary Jen Psaki defended the idea of economic fragility as a “high-class problem” in a Friday appearance on CNN, saying it meant “more people” were buying goods.

“I get the larger point that when we’re talking about economics, we’re coming out of recession,” host Jake Tapper noted in an evening interview with Psaki. “But doesn’t it seem tone deaf to say that rising prices and empty grocery store shelves are high class problems? Isn’t that a bit dismissive?”

He was speaking in reference to a Twitter comment by Jason Furman, a former chairman of the White House Council of Economic Advisers. “Most of the economic problems we’re facing (inflation, supply chains, etc.) are high class problems,” Furman wrote. “We wouldn’t have had them if the unemployment rate was still 10 percent. We would instead have a much worse problem.”