4.4 Million New Jobless Claims, 26 Million In Five Weeks

April 23, 2020 Coronavirus, Employment

Another 4.4 million Americans filed for initial jobless claims last week, revealing that at least 26 million people have requested unemployment benefits since the outbreak of the coronavirus pandemic.

In just one month, all job gains since the Great Recession have disappeared, according to new data released Thursday by the Department of Labor. The economy had created around 22 million jobs since 2010, during a historic decade of economic expansion that came to an abrupt end in February.

“It is very easy with these numbers to get to 20 percent unemployment,” said David G. Blanchflower, a professor of economics at Dartmouth College.

A record 26 million Americans likely sought unemployment benefits over the last five weeks, confirming that all the jobs created during the longest employment boom in U.S. history were wiped out in about a month https://t.co/8iXdLfKztl

— Reuters (@Reuters) April 23, 2020