Another 3 million filed for unemployment last week, bringing the total unemployed due to the shutting down of the economy to over 36 million:
CNBC – New filings for unemployment claims totaled just shy of 3 million for the most recent reporting period, a number that while still high declined for the sixth straight week, according to Labor Department figures Thursday.
The total 2.981 million new claims for unemployment insurance filed last week brought the coronavirus crisis total to nearly 36.5 million, by far the biggest loss in U.S. history. The count announced last week count was revised up by 7,000 to 3.176 million, putting the weekly decline at 195,000 between the two most recent reports.
Economists surveyed by Dow Jones had been expecting the latest count of new claims to be 2.7 million.
To put it into perspective, CNBC graphed it:
These 36.5 million jobs aren’t going to just grow back overnight when we finally get the economy going again like it was before the governors starting shutting everything down. I think we’re going to be stuck with terribly high unemployment for quite a while.
At some point, when we know much more than we do now, I think we’re going to look back at this moment one day with clearer eyes and realize what a mistake it was to shut down the economy like this.