It was predicted that at least 30 million people would be put out of work due to COVID-19 and the economic shutdown that has ensued. Five weeks in now, the most recent round of 4 million job losses in one week put the total number of losses at 26 million, just four million short of the projected numbers.
Jobless claim filings continued at a historically unprecedented pace last week with 4.4 million new signups for unemployment insurance, bringing the total of the past five weeks to 26.4 million, the Labor Department said Thursday.
The number represented a decline of 810,000 from the previous week, but the five-week total has now surpassed all of the job gains since the Great Recession.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had expected 4.3 million new claims.
“Another horrendous number, but at least the trajectory is clearly downwards,” said Ian Shepherdson, chief economist at Pantheon Macroeconomics. (source)
These numbers are not funny. Each one represents a real person whose life is being destroyed because of economic fundamentals, as the virus is not the issue, but the thing which is exposing the decline that was already in the system but was not dealt with for twelve years.
There are going to be very hard times ahead for America. This is just the beginning.