3.8 million Americans sought jobless benefits last week, extending pandemic's grip [View all]
Source: Washington Post
More than 3.8 million people filed for unemployment benefits last week, according to the Labor Department, as the coronavirus pandemic’s economic toll burrowed deeper into the American workforce.
The outbreak and subsequent recession have wiped away all jobs created since the 2008 financial crisis. Economists estimate the national unemployment rate sits between 15 and 20 percent, compared to about 25 percent at the peak of the Great Depression. For comparison, 4.4 million people applied for benefits for the week ending April 18. There is no precedent for figures like this in modern American history.
At first, national attention focused on the unprecedented wave of layoffs tied to restaurant and other non-essential businesses, said Tara Sinclair, an economist at the George Washington University and senior fellow of the Indeed Hiring Lab. But it quickly became clear that many more industries were going to be hit by the downturn. Even in the midst of a global pandemic, Sinclair pointed to recent job losses in the health care industry, as surgeries and other elective procedures are cancelled in large numbers.“No job is safe,” Sinclair said.
During normal times, a few hundred thousand people might seek unemployment benefits on any given week, but millions of Americans have filed claims each week for more than a month. This has overwhelmed state processing centers and expedited the debate in Washington about how to respond to the economic turmoil. Many Americans have stopped paying their rent and other bills, and economists are predicting any recovery will stretch well into 2021, and possibly beyond.
Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2020/04/30/weekly-jobless-claims-unemployment/
Full headline: 3.8 million Americans sought jobless benefits last week, extending pandemic’s grip on the national workforce
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