Joe.My.God. LGBT News
NBC News reports:
More than 1.43 million people filed for unemployment benefits for the first time last week, according to new weekly data from the Department of Labor.
It’s the second-straight week that the number has risen, and the 19th week in a row that the U.S. has seen more than a million claims. For context, the prior peak was in 1982, when the weekly figure hit 695,000.
The extent of the economic damage wrought by the coronavirus pandemic was further revealed on Thursday, with gross domestic product for the second quarter sinking by a record 32.9 percent annualized, according to data from the Bureau of Economic Analysis.
The Washington Post reports:
The U.S. economy shrank 9.5 percent from April through June, the largest quarterly decline since the government began publishing data 70 years ago, and the latest, sobering reflection of the pandemic’s economic devastation.
The second quarter report on gross domestic product covers some of the economy’s worst weeks in living memory, when commercial activity ground to a halt, millions of Americans lost their jobs and the nation went into lockdown.
Yet economists say the data should also serve as a cautionary tale for what’s at stake if the recovery slips away, especially as rising coronavirus cases in some states have forced businesses to close once again.
Breaking: The US economy contracted by 32.9% between April and June, its worst drop in history.
-Bureau of Economic Analysis.
— Jim Sciutto (@jimsciutto) July 30, 2020